Green v. Ferguson’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 56 later decisions — most recently December 2019 · most notably Ferguson v. Green (1979), Artman v. Hoy (2007)
10 federal appellate · 32 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 C. & A. Construction Co. v. Benning Construction Co. · Felker v. Rice · Miller v. Dyer · Kempner v. Cohn · Green v. Harrington
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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Appellants contend they are entitled to damages for breach of contract in lieu of specific performance. The chancellor made no finding on the issue of damages since he found there was no breach of the contract. It is undisputed that appellees conveyed the land to another following the alleged breach of contract. It is well established that the measure of damages for a breach of contract to convey is based on the value of the land at the time of the breach. Kempner v. Cohn, 47 Ark. 519 , 1 S.W. 869 (1886). Here appellants exercised their right to purchase as of November 1, 1974. Appellees had four months from that date to convey title and failed and refused to do so. Appellants adduced evidence from an appraisor that the fair market value of the property was $193,151 “as of 1975,” which figure, say appellants, would be reduced by the “mortgage indebtedness of $80,349 leaving an equity of [$102,803] of Appellants in the property.” This asserted equity is the amount of damages sought by them. The appraiser did not know the property was encumbered by a twenty year lease-purchase option which he said could result in the property being “worth more or it may be worth less.” Therefore, appellees argue that appellants did not sufficiently demonstrate the value of the property with respect to the date of the appraisal nor what effect the mortgage or the lease-purchase agreement had upon the value of the property. Ordinarily, we might agree with appellees. However, there is other eviden”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Ferguson v. Green“This court is well aware of the distinction, urged by relator, between a grantee who assumes and agrees to pay an outstanding mortgage and a grantee who takes subject to an outstanding mortgage. The former may be held personally liable; the latter is threatened only with the loss of his equity in the property in the event of foreclosure. In the absence of clear language to the contrary on a deed conveying real property, a grantee who 'assumes' a mortgage encumbering real property becomes personally liable to pay same as though he is 'assuming and agreeing to pay' it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“whenever parties to a contract express their intention in clear and unambiguous language in a written instrument, it is the court's duty to construe the writing in accordance with the plain meaning of the language employed....”
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.