Beanstalk Group, Inc. v. AM General Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
283 F.3d 856 · 2002
Citation profile
53 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 122 later decisions — most recently October 2024 · most notably Walker v. Thompson (2002), Higgs v. Carver (2002)
53 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 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 Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit · Salve Regina College v. Russell · United Drug Co. v. Theodore Rectanus Co. · Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona · Michael Leavitt Governor of Utah v. Jane L
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 122 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'[A] contract will not be interpreted literally if doing so would produce absurd results, in the sense of results that the parties, presumed to be rational persons pursuing rational ends, are very unlikely to have agreed to seek.'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Sentences are not isolated units of meaning, but take meaning from other sentences in the same document. ... To interpret a contract or other document, it is not enough to have a command of the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of the language in which the document is written. One must know something about the practical as well as the purely verbal context of the language to be interpreted.... A blinkered literalism, a closing of one’s eyes to the obvious, can produce nonsensical results ____”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“All that's required to state a claim in a complaint filed in a federal court is a short statement, in plain (that is, ordinary, nonlegalistic) English, of the legal claim.... The courts keep reminding plaintiffs that they don't have to file long complaints, don't have to plead facts, don't have to plead legal theories.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Higgs v. Carver
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.