Palmer v. Albert’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently August 2010
1 federal appellate · 10 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 Fashion Fabrics of Iowa, Inc. v. Retail Investors Corp. · Basic Chemicals, Inc. v. Benson · Lewis v. Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance · Severson v. Elberon Elevator, Inc. · DeWaay v. Muhr
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We have a number of cases supporting the principle that a contract must be definite and certain in order to be given legal effect, (cases omitted). However, this rule should not be carried to extreme lengths nor should it be used to defeat the intent of the parties. (Cites omitted) .... Vagueness, indefiniteness, and uncertainty are matters of degree. (Cite omitted). Each case must be decided on its own particular circumstances. In Wickham & Burton Co. v. Farmer’s Lumber Co., 189 Iowa 1183, 1185 , 179 N.W. 417 , 418 (1920), this appears: ‘[Wjhatsoever is ascertainable with reasonable effort is sufficiently certain to be enforced ...' In Severson v. Elberon Elevator, Inc., 250 N.W.2d 417, 420 (Iowa 1977), we said: ‘[Contract] terms are sufficiently definite if the Court can determine with reasonable certainty the duty of each party and the conditions relative to performance.’ Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 32(2) (Tent, drafts Nos. 1-7) (1973) states the rule this way: "The terms of a contract are reasonably certain if they provide a basis for determining existence of a breach and for giving an appropriate remedy.’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“However, this rule should not be carried to extreme lengths nor should it be used to defeat the intent of the parties. Vagueness, indefiniteness, and uncertainty are matters of degree. Each case must be decided on its own particular circumstances.”
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.