Mandel v. Liebman’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently January 2019 · most notably Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co. (1965), Resource Management Co. v. Weston Ranch (1985)
15 federal appellate · 22 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 Wood v. . Duff-Gordon · Hume v. United States · Martin v. . Camp · Allegheny College v. National Chautauqua County Bank of Jamestown · Moran v. . Standard Oil Co.
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 61 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The . . . provision in the contract — that plaintiff ‘shall only devote as much time and attention to the activities and affairs’ of defendant ‘as the opinion and judgment’ of plaintiff ‘deems necessary’ — must be given a reasonable interpretation consonant with the purpose of the contract. It would be an unnatural and bizarre construction of the document to hold that that provision was intended to excuse plaintiff from any obligation to render service under the contract, while continuing to reap benefits thereunder. The provision seems merely to constitute an attempt on the part of plaintiff to protect himself from excessive and unreasonable demands upon his time.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[ejven if the contract had merely provided that plaintiff was employed as “personal representative and manager,” with no further description of his duties, that would have been sufficient, for it would have shown that as to these parties, in a specialized field with its own peculiar customs and usages, that phrase was enough to measure the entire intent of plaintiffs required services.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““. . . that plaintiff, under this pro-. vision, could deem it necessary to devote no time to the activities and affairs of defendant, but in that event, it is clear that plaintiff would not be performing the contract but would be breaching it and foregoing his right to compensation.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.