Brush Hill Development, Inc. v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently July 2012 · most notably Agoos Leather Companies, Inc. v. American & Foreign Insurance (1961), Ramacorti v. Boston Redevelopment Authority (1960)
36 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 Newton Girl Scout Council, Inc. v. Massachusetts Turnpike Authority · United States v. Certain Parcels of Land · Simmonds v. United States · Tigar v. Mystic River Bridge Authority · Peirson v. Boston Elevated Railway 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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““This court, of course, in the past has not approved the admission, as evidence of fair market value, of testimony concerning executory purchase and sale agreements, covering comparable land not taken, even though such contracts of sale (if genuine and not contrived as evidence for the occasion) may reasonably be regarded by real estate experts and practical businessmen as helpful indications of such value. See Chapin v. Boston & Providence R.R. 6 Cush. 422, 424; Suburban Land Co. Inc. v. Arlington, 219 Mass. 539, 541 . We need not now reconsider these two decisions or determine whether possible infirmities in such testimony (such as alleged lack of a genuine transaction) should not more reasonably go to the weight of the testimony than to its competency. The situation is very different with respect to binding agreements of purchase and sale of the very land taken, which constitute more than unaccepted offers, as in Peirson v. Boston Elev. Ry. 191 Mass. 223, 232-233 , or options, or contracts based upon so many contingencies as to be meaningless on the issue of fair market value. Such testimony about executory contracts of sale, absolute in terms, relating to the very land taken, is much more directly relevant than if it concerned neighboring or comparable land.” Id. at 364-65 , 155 N. E. 2d at 174 .”
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.