Johnson v. McIntyre’s Empirical Analysis
1932
Citation profile
7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently February 1964
7 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 Cook v. Johnson · Smith's Appeal · Pittsburg Stove & Range Co. v. Pennsylvania Stove Co. · Richards v. Shipley · Sklaroff v. Sklaroff
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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We cannot assent to the construction of the contract made by the court below. The meaning of the words used to define the territory from which defendant agreed to withdraw is plain, unambiguous and definitive, easily given practical effect. The distance ‘by the nearest traveled public way or road’ from the Boswell Borough line to defendant’s office in Johnstown is 15.4 miles. If the defendant, as his argument implies, intended to describe a district irregular in shape and extent, as dependent on accessibility by public roads, he should have said so. Such a boundary would necessarily have elements of uncertainty, as there might be dispute about which of several was the nearest traveled public way. These parties expressed themselves clearly in words of plain and simple meaning; that sense is not varied by the context. It is not suggested that there is any mistake about what they intended to say. The court has no power to substitute for ‘a radius of fifteen miles’ the words ‘fifteen miles by the nearest traveled public way or road’ because the context and the circumstances exclude such inference. [Citing cases.]””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““By direct line, the distance from the place in Boswell sold by defendant to plaintiff, at which defendant formerly practiced, is 12.2 miles. It is therefore clear that defendant is permanently engaged well within the circle in which he agreed that he would not practice, and from which he agreed to withdraw, and in which he agreed to assist plaintiff in establishing himself.””
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.