Goldman v. Mitchell-Fletcher Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate · 96 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 144 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘The rule that there can be no contribution among wrongdoers has so many exceptions that it can hardly with propriety be called a general rule. It applies properly only to cases where there has been an intentional violation of law, or where the wrongdoer is to be presumed to have known that the act was unlawful’: Bailey v. Bussing, 28 Conn. 455 . ‘We must look for personal participation, personal culpability, personal knowledge. If we do not find these circumstances, but perceive only a liability in the eye of the law, growing out of a mere relation to the perpetrator of the wrong, the maxim of law that there is no contribution among wrongdoers is not to be applied. . . . The rule that wrongdoers cannot have redress or contribution against each other, is confined to cases where the person seeking redress must be presumed to have known that he was doing an unlawful act’: Ibid., pages 459, 460. . . . ‘But the rule is to be understood according to its true sense and meaning, which is where the tort is known, meditated wrong.’ ‘Modern decision has limited the doctrine to situations where the person who claims contribution must be presumed to have known that he was doing an unlawful act’: Street’s Foundations of Legal Liability, vol. 1, page 490. ‘Even though a person has actually participated in the wrong, the rule that wrongdoers cannot have redress or contribution against each other is confined to cases where the person seeking redress must be presumed to have known that he w”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gutekunst v. Huber

2. ““ ‘A surety who pays a debt which has been reduced to judgment, is entitled to have the judgment kept alive for his benefit, and to enjoy, as against the principal debtor, ...... exactly the same advantages which could have been claimed by the judgment creditor’: Bispham’s Principles of Equity (10th ed.), sec. 336. ‘Subrogation is an equity called into existence for the purpose of enabling a party secondarily liable, but who has paid the debt, to reap the benefit of any securities or remedies which the creditor may hold as against the principal debtor and by the use of which the party may thus be made whole’: Ibid., sec. 335. ‘The general rule is well settled that if a surety has paid a debt, he is entitled to all the securities the creditor had against the principal debtor. If the claim be in judgment, he is entitled to be subrogated of record. Even if the judgment has been marked satisfied on the record, the surety paying is entitled to be subrogated’: Wright v. Grover & Baker Co. 82 Pa. 80 ; Lackawanna Trust & Safe Deposit Co. v. Gomeringer, 236 Pa. 179 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 112 Pa. Super. 270 - Commonwealth v. American Surety Co.