Floyd v. Andress’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"It is practically the universal rule that in suits to reform written instruments on the ground of fraud or mutual mistake, parol evidence is admissible to establish the fact of fraud or of a mistake and in what it consisted, and to show how the writing should be corrected in order to conform to the agreement or intention which the parties actually made or had. The nature of the action is such that it is outside the field of operation of the parol evidence rule, since the court does not receive parol testimony to vary the contract of the parties but to show what their contract really was. If the rule were otherwise and parol evidence was not admissible in an action for reformation, a rule adopted by the courts as a protection against fraud and false swearing—that is, the parol evidence rule— would become the instrument of the very fraud it was designed to prevent, and the reformation or correction of a written instrument would rarely, if ever, be accomplished. Evidence of fraud or mistake is seldom found in the instrument itself, and unless parol evidence may be admitted for the purpose of procuring its reformation, the aggrieved party would have as little hope of redress in a court of equity as in a court of law. ..."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Scarber v. Kelsoe · 519 So. 2d 480 - Alabama Farm Bureau Ins. Co. v. Hunt

2. ““ * * * But while the cross-bill contains the allegation of no suit pending, as required by the statute, yet when this allegation is considered in the light of the original bill, it appears that there was in fact a suit pending in which the title is involved when the cross-bill was filed. Owen v. Montgomery, 230 Ala. 574 , 161 So. 816 . For this reason we will not sustain the cross-bill as a statutory bill to quiet title.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Myers v. Moorer