Peck v. List’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 8 state decisions

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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It will be observed that in most of the eases where there have been by-bidders, they were employed by the owners of the property about to be sold' at auction; that is, were puffers in the strict sense of the word. But it is obviously unimportant whether the by-bidder is employed by the owner of the land or by some one else, having a pecuniary interest in the auctipn about to be made, and who stands in such a relation to.it that he can make good his assurances to the by-bidder that he shall not be held responsible for his bid, if it happens to be the highest bid made. The real essence of the fraud is not that the owner is bidding for the property, but it consists in the fact that a by-bidder, pretending to be a bona fide bidder, deceives honest bidders, raises the price of the property by fictitious bids, increasing competition, while he himself has good reason to believe, and does believe, that he is secure from any risk of being held personally liable for his bids. It is immaterial from whom he derives this assurance of immunity, provided the party giving the assurance expressly or impliedly has the power either legally or practically to make good the assurance.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Williams v. Hogue