Spence v. Harvey’s Empirical Analysis
1863
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently April 1943
8 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is said that this particular contract is not against public policy, because in fact the place selected was suitable and convenient • for the public use. The question of the validity of the contract does not, however, depend upon the circumstance whether it can be shown that the public has in fact suffered any detriment, but whether the contract is in its nature such as might have been injurious to the public, and which the public policy requires should not be made by public officers in regard to the discharge of their duties. Upon this point the case of Fuller v. Dame, 18 Pick. (Mass.) 472, is pertinent. In that case it appears that Puller was a stockholder in the Boston and Worcester Railroad Corporation and for a consideration he agreed to use his influence in procuring that corporation to locate its depot at a particular place in Boston, it being expressed in the agreement that Puller was of the opinion that the road ought, from a view to the public good and the good of the stockholders, to locate its depot at that place. The contract was held to be void on the ground that the road was established for the public accommodation although a private corporation, and that the public had an interest in the question of the location of the depot, and that though the contract was not made to induce a party to do an unlawful act, it put him under an influence to do that which might injuriously affect the interests of the public. . . . ‘Nor is it any satisfactory answer to say tha”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.