Lane v. Coe’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 88 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 92 later decisions — most recently April 2017 · most notably Kidd v. Early (1976), River Birch Associates v. City of Raleigh (1990)
2 federal appellate · 88 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 Powell v. Mills · Powell v. DEIFELLS, INCORPORATED · Searcy v. . Logan · Hodges v. . Stewart · Rodman v. Robinson.
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 92 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"A memorandum or note is, in its very essence, an informal and imperfect instrument." Lane v. Coe, 262 N.C. 8, 12 , 136 S.E.2d 269, 272-73 (1964) (citing Phillips v. Hooker, 62 N.C. 193, 196 (1867)). However, it must contain expressly or by necessary implication the essential features of an agreement . . . [including] a description of the land . . . either certain in itself or capable of being reduced to certainty by reference to something extrinsic. . . . If the description is sufficiently definite for the court, with the aid of extrinsic evidence, to apply the description to the exact property intended to be sold, it is enough.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““In general, the basis upon which damages will be assessed against a vendee for breach of his executory contract to purchase real estate is compensation to the vendor for the loss or injury sustained by him by reason of the vendee’s breach, the amount, however, to be limited to such damages as may reasonably be supposed to have been within the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract as the probable result of the breach. Generally, the measure is the difference between the contract price and the market value of the land at the time of the breach, giving the vendee credit for any sums paid by him on the purchase price, or in other words, the difference between the unpaid balance of the principal and the market value of the property at such time.” (Footnotes omitted)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“'A description is ... latently ambiguous if it is insufficient in itself to identify the property but refers to something extrinsic by which identification might possibly be made.' Thus, a description missing or uncertain in one document may be rendered certain by another and together the documents may satisfy the statute of frauds.”
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.