Childress v. Abeles’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
22 federal appellate · 2 district · 211 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 285 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably United Laboratories, Inc. v. Kuykendall (1988), Chaves v. Johnson (1985)
22 federal appellate · 2 district · 211 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 William Truax v. Mike Raich · Hornstein v. Podwitz · Louis Kamm, Inc. v. Flink · Townsend v. United States · Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc. v. Milk Wagon Drivers' Union of Chicago No. 753
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 285 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“First, that a valid contract existed between the plaintiff and a third person, conferring upon the plaintiff some contractual right against the third person. Second, that the outsider had knowledge of the plaintiffs contract with the third person. Third, that the outsider intentionally induced the third person not to perform his contract with the plaintiff. Fourth, that in so doing the outsider acted without justification. Fifth, that the outsider’s act caused the plaintiff actual damages.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage“Indeed, actual malice and freedom from liability for this tort may coexist. If the outsider has a sufficient lawful reason for inducing the breach of contract, he is exempt from liability for so doing, no matter how malicious in actuality his conduct may be. A “malicious motive makes a bad act worse but it cannot make that wrong which, in its own essence, is lawful.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“The outsider has knowledge of the contract within the meaning of the second element of the tort if he knows the facts which give rise to the plaintiff’s contractual right against the third person. “If he knows those facts, he is subject to liability even though he is mistaken as to their legal significance and believes that there is no contract or that the contract means something other than what it is judicially held to mean.””
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.