Willard v. Claborn’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently December 2006 · most notably Linda Sue Edwards v. Travelers Insurance of Hartford, Connecticut, P. v. Jackson, III v. Travelers Insurance of Hartford, Connecticut, P. v. Jackson, III v. Travelers Insurance of Hartford, Connecticut (1977), Newton v. Johnson (1988)
6 federal appellate · 28 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.
Relationships
Relies on Gulf Compress Co. v. Harris, Cortner & Co. · 99 Cal. App. 456 - Woodhead Lumber Co. v. E. G. Niemann Investments, Inc. · Eidson v. Hardware Mut. Casualty Co. · Title Guaranty & Trust Co. v. Bushnell · Ruohs v. Traders Fire Insurance
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“****** In contracts there are essentially three types of third party beneficiaries. First, where the performance of the promise will constitute a gift to the beneficiary; the beneficiary is a donee beneficiary. Second, if no purpose to make a gift appears from the terms of the contract and the performance of it will satisfy an actual or supposed asserted duty of the promisee to the beneficiary; the beneficiary is a creditor beneficiary. Third, in all other cases the beneficiary is deemed to be an incidental beneficiary. See Restatement of Contracts, Sec. 133.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘In Tennessee the doctrine is firmly established that the beneficiary, though not a party to the contract, may maintain an action directly in his own name against the promisor, where such promise between the promisor and the prom-isee is made upon sufficient consideration for the benefit of the third party.’ ” (Citations omitted.)”
2 later decisions 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.