Foley v. Crow’s Empirical Analysis
1872
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently January 1992 · most notably Stiegler v. Eureka Life Insurance (1925), Maryland Construction Co. v. Kuper (1900)
25 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.
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““There is no doubt that the vendee of an estate in an unexecuted contract is entitled to have that for which he contracts, before he can be compelled to-part with the consideration he agreed to pay, and that the ability of the-vendor to convey should exist when his duty by the contract arises to convey, or at the time of a decree for a conveyance, where time is not of the essence-of the contract. * * * But it does not necessarily follow from this general rule that there is no case of specific execution at the instance of the vendor unless he has ability to convey in strict and exact compliance with the contract as to the quantity or extent of the subject-matter sold. On the contrary, notwithstanding the general rule thus stated, there are many cases, owing to special circumstances, where the vendor may obtain specific performance of the contract in equity, although he may not be able to convey to the vendee to the full extent bargained for. And if in any case the contract be one that is fit and proper to be thus executed on the application of the vendor, it is clear the vendee can have no option to rescind it, in view of a court of equity, whatever may be his right at law. In a case where the vendor is unable, from any cause not involving mala tides on his part, to-convey each and every parcel of the land contracted to be sold, and it is apparent that the part that cannot be conveyed is of small importance, or is immaterial to the purchaser’s enjoyment of that which may be co”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.