Austin v. Parker’s Empirical Analysis
1925
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently September 1978 · most notably Schumann-Heink v. Folsom (1927), Hamlen v. Welch (1940)
2 federal appellate · 28 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 Taylor v. Mayo · Duvall v. Craig · Wahl v. Schmidt · Hewitt v. Phelps · Bradner Smith & Co. v. Williams
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In this case it does not appear by the bill or the evidence offered that either Parker, or he and his co-trustees, Hawkensoliand Coe, stipulated with Austin that the trust estate should be bound. Both Parker and Coe testified there was no meeting of the trustees or act ratifying or authorizing the negotiations with Austin and that the trustees, made no contract with Austin. The contract between Parker and Austin was that Austin was to be president of the new insurance corporation when taken over. There was no contract by which either Parker, the trustees or the estate agreed to pay Austin any sum of money for his services. The only ground, therefore, upon which Austin could recover anything from anybody for his services is that there was an implied promise to pay him a reasonable fee. The circuit and Appellate Courts held the estate liable on quantum meruit under an implied liability arising because the estate got the benefit of his contract. The evidence does not show an express ratification of this contract by the trustees. There was no agreement sufficient to charge the estate before the work was done. The most that could be said of the contract was that it was a charge against Parker or the trustees personally or individually.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““A trustee cannot create a lien on the trust estate in favor of a creditor, or charge the trust estate even by his contract, without express authority by the instrument creating the trust.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Tudor v. Firebaugh
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.