Plitt v. Greenberg’s Empirical Analysis
1966
Citation profile
16 district · 78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 95 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably 37 Ill. 2d 494 - Pedrick v. Peoria & Eastern Railroad (1967), Impala Platinum Ltd. v. Impala Sales (U.S.A.), Inc. (1978)
16 district · 78 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 Smith v. Bernfeld · Eatwell v. Beck · Maszczenski v. Myers · Proctor Electric Co. v. Zink · Lehmann v. Johnson
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 95 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Although Greenberg may not have known that he had received the proceeds of Plitt’s check into his account, and no express contract for debt existed between Plitt and Greenberg, the law implies a debt “whenever the defendant has obtained possession of money which, in equity and good conscience, he ought not to be allowed to retain.” According to the Restatement, Restitution § 123: “A person who, non-tortiously and without notice that another has the beneficial ownership of it, acquires property which it would have been wrongful for him to acquire with notice of the facts and of which he is not a purchaser for value is, upon discovery of the facts, under a duty to account to the other for the direct product of the subject matter and the value of the use to him, if any[.]”.... “It is immaterial how the money may have come into the defendant’s hands, and the fact that it was received from a third person will not affect his liability, if, in equity and good conscience, he is not entitled to hold it against the true owner.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[although Greenberg may not have known that he had received the proceeds of Plitt’s check into his account, ... the law implies a debt “whenever the defendant has obtained possession of money which, in equity and good conscience, he ought not to be allowed to retain.” ... [A] plaintiff could recover money from even an innocent transferee who was without knowledge that he possessed the plaintiffs money.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]his Court has always maintained that if there be any legally relevant and competent evidence, however slight, from which a rational mind could infer a fact in issue, then a trial court has invaded the province of the jury by declaring a directed verdict.”
3 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.