Smith v. Githens’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 30 state decisions

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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Reformation, and ordinarily rescission or cancellation, is only granted where there is a mutual mistake. However, there are exceptions made to these general rules in cases where the mistake of one party is either known to the other party or is so obvious, under the circumstances, that it must have been known to him, and the mistake concerns a matter so vital that it can be said that the parties, because of miscalculation or false information, never actually agreed to the same proposition. The rule applicable to this kind of a case is stated in 6 R.C.L. 623, § 42, as follows: ‘If one of the parties, through mistake, names a consideration that is out of all proportion to the value of the subject of negotiation, and the other party, realizing that a mistake must have been committed, takes advantage of it, and refuses to let the mistake be corrected when it is discovered, he cannot, under these conditions, claim an enforceable contract. Where there is a mistake that on its face is so palpable as to place a person of reasonable intelligence upon his guard, there is not a meeting of the minds of the parties, and consequently there can be no contract.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sheinbein v. First Boston Corp.

2. “It is entirely competent for the parties to a contract to modify or waive their rights under it and engraft new terms upon it. The parties to a contract ordinarily are as free to change it after making it as they were to make it in the first instance, notwithstanding provisions in it designed to hamper such freedom. For instance, the time fixed for performance or payment may be enlarged by subsequent agreement. A subordinate and separable part of the contract may be waived or modified by the parties without a cancellation or avoidance of the whole contract. To be effective as a modification, the new agreement must possess all the elements necessary to form a contract.... Moreover, the assent of both parties to a modification is necessary. Such consent is required to vary a contract as much as to make one originally.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Nationwide Life Insurance Co.

3. “as to a fact which enters into and forms the very basis of the contract.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 933 F. Supp. 822 - McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. SCI Technology, Inc.