Witten v. Stout’s Empirical Analysis
1925
Citation profile
38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently August 2018 · most notably Gerfin v. Colonial Smelting & Refining Co. (1953), Stafford v. Reed (1950)
38 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 Gilbraith's Estate · Graham v. Graham's Executors · Seaman v. Borough of Washington · Cummiskey's Estate · Breniman v. Breniman
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Plaintiff averred an express contract to give her specified compensation, and her statement of claim is drawn on that theory; at the same time, she claimed the value of her services, possibly with an intent to bring herself within the class of cases governed by the rule . . . the plaintiff must aver and prove the contract, and either its full performance (Kelly v. Foster, 2 Binney 4; Harris v. Ligget, 1W. & S. 301; Eckel v. Murphey, 15 Pa. 488, 493 ; Brown v. Foster, 51 Pa. 165 ; McManus v. Cassidy, 66 Pa. 260, 263 ), or its partial performance with a proper legal excuse for the failure to perform in full r Alexander v. Hoffman, 5 W. & S. 382 ; Moorhead v. Fry, 24 Pa. 37 ; Phila. v. Tripple, 230 Pa. 480 . . . . “Unless, by amendment or otherwise, there is a clear averment in the statement of claim showing a plain intention to plant plaintiff’s case on a pure quantum meruit basis, the rule (correctly set forth by Judge Landis in Wolf v. Yeager’s Exrs., 20 Lancaster L. Rev. 67) controls, that, where one claims on an express contract to pay a fixed compensation, he cannot, on failure to prove the contract, entitle himself to recover by proving simply the value of services rendered, without showing an actual promise to pay.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Brick v. Kapner
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.