Howell v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Griffin v. Wheeler-Leonard & Co., Inc. (1976), Bone International, Inc. v. Brooks (1981)
38 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 Brackenridge v. Claridge & Payne · Cobb v. . Knapp · Ell Dee Clothing Co. v. Marsh · Howell v. Smith · Walston v. R. B. Whitley & Co.
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If a third party to a contract involving an undisclosed principal discovers the agency and the identity of the principal while a continuing, divisible contract for the furnishing of goods or supplies is still executory, he then has the option to deal either with the agent or the principal with respect to the future performance of the contract. Ordinarily, the agent who made the original purchase is not liable if the third party continues to deliver goods after acquiring knowledge of the principal’s identity unless he has agreed to be personally liable.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[a]n agent who makes a contract for an undisclosed principal is personally liable as a party to it unless the other party had actual knowledge of the agency and of the principal's identity.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“An agent who makes a contract for an undisclosed principal is personally liable as a party to it unless the other party had actual knowledge of the agency and of the principal’s identity . . . The disclosure of the agency is not complete so as to relieve the agent of personal liability unless it embraces the name of the principal. The duty is on the agent to make this disclosure and not upon the third person with whom he is dealing to discover it ... It will not relieve the agent from personal liability that the person with whom he dealt had means of discovering that the agent was acting as such . . . When the principal becomes known, the other party to the contract may elect whether he will resort to him or to the agent with whom he dealt unless the contract is under seal, a negotiable instrument, or expressly excludes him.” Howell v. Smith, 261 N.C. 256, 258-259 , 134 S.E. 2d 381 (1964).”
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.