Law v. Grant’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 23 state decisions

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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It frequently happens that the market values of stocks and other kinds of property are temporarily inflated, by means of the grossest frauds, far above intrinsic values. Yet no one will claim that contracts for the sale and purchase thereof at such inflated prices, by parties not concerned in the fraud, can be successfully impeached. This seems to be a case within the same principle. The defendant was made to believe that he knew the value of the land better than did the owner. He acted upon that belief, and bought the land at an exorbitant price. His opinion' was based partly upon false assertions of fact made by R. S. Law, and for which the plaintiff was in no manner responsible, but mainly, in our opinion, upon his absurd belief in the powers of Fox. Neither was the plaintiff responsible for that belief, but sold his land for the price the defendant was willing to pay for it. It turns out that the belief of defendant is unsound; that he spent his money1 and incurred obligations upon the strength of a false theory or doctrine, being incited thereto by the false statements before mentioned. On what principle can a court of equity relieve him from the consequences of his gross folly and want of common discretion and prudence ? The question has already been answered. In order to entitle himself to relief, we have seen that he must connect the plaintiff with the alleged fraud by showing that it was perpetrated by the plaintiff or his agent, or, if by a person not the agent of ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Przybylski v. Von Berg

2. ““The cases cited by the learned counsel for the defendant abundantly demonstrate the rule of law to be, that if Richard S. Law acted as the agent of the plaintiff in negotiating the sale of the mortgaged premises, the latter is responsible for all the means employed by his agent to effect the sale. If the agent effected it by means of false representations or fraud of any other description, although without authority from the plaintiff to do so, and although the plaintiff was entirely ignorant that he had done so, the legal status of the plaintiff is precisely the same as it would have been had he made the false representations or committed the fraudulent acts to the same end, in person.” Law v. Grant (1875), 37 Wis. 548, 557 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 15 Wis. 2d 336 - Pollack v. Reserve Life Insurance

3. ““Aside from the mere fact that the plaintiff demanded and received what now seems to have been an exorbitant price for his land, the case.seems entirely destitute of evidence tending, even remotely, to prove that the plaintiff then had any knowledge or suspicion that R. S. Law had perpetrated a fraud of any kind upon the defendant.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Przybylski v. Von Berg