Crowell v. Woodruff’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently April 2015
9 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 Kadis v. . Britt · Johnson v. Stumbo · Thomas W. Briggs Co. v. Mason · Dunscombe v. Amfot Oil Co. · Robenson v. Yann
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The instant covenant is of dubious quality. There seems to be a lack of mutuality, for there is no corresponding or fair reciprocal obligation on the part of the employer. He did not bind himself to continue Crowell in his employment longer than thirty days, yet the employee bound himself to surrender his life trade in his home community for a period of one year.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Ancillary covenants of this character are valid and enforceable if the terms are reasonable in light of the surrounding cireum-stances.... Reasonableness is to be determined generally by the nature of the business profession and employment, and the scope of the restrictions with respect to their character, duration and territorial extent."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]here must be read into the contract an implied obligation to retain [the employee for] such period of time as would deserve the right to enforce the [non-compete agreement]”
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.