Nusbaum v. Saffell’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
2 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently November 2005
2 district · 10 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 Strickler Engineering Corp. v. Seminar, Inc. · Trotter v. Lewis · Quillen v. Kelley · Beane v. McMullen · Robinson v. Gardiner
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.
“"In Quillen v. Kelley, 216 Md. 396 , 140 A.2d 517 (1958), Judge Prescott, for the Court, delineated the circumstances under which specific performance will be decreed: 'It needs little, if any, citation of authority to sustain the statement that if an agreement be so vague and indefinite that it is impossible to collect from it the full intention of the parties, it is void, Strickler Eng. Corp. v. Seminar, 210 Md. 93, 101 , 122 A.2d 563 , Robinson v. Gardiner, 196 Md. 213, 217 , 76 A.2d 354 , and the vendee is entitled to a refund of any payments made upon the purchase price. Globe Home Impvt. Co. v. Brothers, 204 Md. 73, 74 , 102 A.2d 748 . But courts are reluctant to reject an agreement, regularly and fairly made, as unintelligible or insensible. The agreement will be sustained if the meaning of the parties can be ascertained, either from the express terms of the instrument or by fair implication. The law does not favor, but leans against the destruction of contracts because of uncertainty; therefore, the courts will, if possible, so construe the contract as to carry into effect the reasonable intention of the parties if that can be ascertained. Middendorf, W & Co. v. Milburn Co., 134 Md. 385, 387, 388 , 107 A. 7 . Cf., Trotter v. Lewis, 185 Md. 528 , 45 A.2d 329 ; Schloss v. Davis, 213 Md. 119 , 131 A.2d 287 .’ 216 Md. 407 (emphasis added). "We have consistently adhered to these principles where a question of indefiniteness has arisen in specific performance cases, Chamber”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he chancellor has the power—indeed the plain duty—to allow defects in proof to be supplied at any time, when, in his discretion, the ends of justice will be served; and that his action in so doing will only be reversed if it is arbitrary and the rights of some of the parties are improperly affected.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Corry v. O'Neill
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.