Hart v. Bell’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 2 district · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions — most recently August 2007 · most notably Katz Corp. v. T. H. Canty & Co. (1975), Miller v. Miller (1974)
8 federal appellate · 2 district · 45 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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.
Relationships
Relies on Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. v. Voigt · Twin City Pipe Line Co. v. Harding Glass Co. · Manson v. . Curtis · Smith v. San Francisco & North Pacific Railway Co. · Bartron v. Codington County
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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A]n appellate court may base its decision upon a theory not presented to or considered by the trial court where the question raised for the first time on appeal is plainly decisive of the entire controversy on its merits, and where, as in [a case] involving undisputed facts, there is no possible advantage or disadvantage to either party in not having had a prior ruling by the trial court on the question.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is not the province of courts to emasculate the liberty of contract by enabling parties to escape their contractual obligations on the pretext of public policy unless the preservation of the public welfare imperatively so demands. [T]he power of courts to declare a contract void for being in contravention of sound public policy is a very delicate and undefined power, and, like the power to declare a statute unconstitutional, should be exercised only in cases free from doubt.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.