Schoonover v. Morton County’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently January 1990
14 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 Farmers Elevator Company v. David · Zuraff v. Empire Fire & Marine Insurance Co. · Grand Forks County v. City of Grand Forks · Perdue v. Knudson · Rude v. Letnes
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We do not believe that the holding in Rolette State Bank v. Rolette County, supra, requires us to hold that the County in this case is not liable to Schoon-overs for the work they have done for the County since 1971. First, the cases are factually distinguishable. In Rolette State Bank , one commissioner acted entirely on his own in entering a contract with his own sons and the other commissioners rejected the bills. In this case, the commissioners as a group accepted Schoonovers’ bid, collectively authorized payment of all previous bills of Schoon-overs, and believe that the County is liable for the last bill submitted by Schoonovers. Second, the rule in North Dakota of holding a county liable on an implied contractual basis where there are procedural defects was adopted after the decision in Rolette State Bank . “We therefore do not interpret the rule set out in Northwestern Sheet & Iron Works v. Sioux County, supra, as narrowly as the County. We believe the proper rule to be that a county cannot escape liability for the reasonable value of services and goods obtained and re tained by it through transactions coming within the general powers of the county and the county commissioners merely because of procedural defects in the methods by which the goods and services were furnished to the county. To escape liability under those circumstances, it is necessary for the county to show fraud, bad faith, collusion, or some other factor which would make it inequitable or unjust to ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““A motion for summary judgment will be granted only if, after taking a view of the evidence in a light most favorable to the party against whom summary judgment is demanded, there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56(c), N.D.R.Civ.P., Farmers Elevator Co. v. David, 234 N.W.2d 26, 29 (N.D.1975); Perdue v. Knudson, 179 N.W.2d 416, 420 (N.D.1970). “We have also said that summary judgment is available to allow for prompt disposition of a controversy on the merits without a trial where there is no dispute as to the salient facts, or when only a question of law is involved and its purpose is to promote the expeditious disposition of cases. Zuraff v. Empire Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 252 N.W.2d 302, 307 (N.D.1977); Rude v. Letnes, 154 N.W.2d 380, 381 (N.D.1967). “Finally, when a motion for summary judgment is made and supported as provided in the rule for summary judgment, the adverse party may not rest upon mere allegations or denials of his pleadings, but his response, by affidavit or as otherwise provided in the rule, must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. Otherwise, if appropriate, summary judgment should be entered against him. Rule 56(e), N.D. R.Civ.P., Johnson v. Community Development Corp. of Wahpeton, 222 N.W.2d 847, 850 (N.D.1974); Ray v. Northern Sugar Corp., 184 N.W.2d 715, 718 (N.D.1971).””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Herman v. Magnuson““In this case there is no allegation of fraud, bad faith, collusion, or any other factor which would make it inequitable or unjust to require the County to pay for the reasonable value of the services and goods obtained and retained by it. Instead, it is undisputed that Schoon-overs were acting in good faith in their transactions with the County. To deny them the reasonable value of the services they performed merely because the commissioners, who fully intended to contract with them, did not follow the proper procedures, would be inequitable and result in unjust enrichment to the County.” Id.”
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.