Commonwealth v. Allstate Bonding Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he terms of the bonds in question negate any obligation on the Commonwealth’s part to provide a surety with notice of a defendant’s nonappearance. As part of the conditions of release and recognizance, a defendant promises to appear at a specified time and place and at other times and places to which his case may be rescheduled, continued, transferred, certified, or appealed. These conditions are incorporated by reference into the bond, defining the obligation assumed by the surety. As part of this obligation, the surety undertakes to guarantee the actual appearance of a defendant when and where his presence is required. Necessarily implicit in that undertaking is the dual burden on the part of the surety of taking some action to secure the defendant’s appearance and of ascertaining whether the action was successful. Having failed to satisfy this burden in the present case, the sureties are in no position to complain that the Commonwealth failed to notify them of the defendant’s nonappearance.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Howard