Cullender v. Levers’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ * * * The legal effect of the guaranty must be just this: A demand was permissible instanter, as appellant agrees and contends, or the guaranty contemplates and assures an extension of the note certainly for some period of time. “Then for what period ? And where must we' seek to ascertain the period intended? Truly, we must look to, the language used in the first instance. If we there find a time expressed, we need go no further. It is only where the parties themselves have failed to express a time that the law steps in and with a permissible arbitrariness says they must have intended ‘a reasonable time.’ “We need not go beyond the literal meaning of the language employed to-find an answer to the inquiry. The language is not ambiguous. Words must be added by implication to those used to make it so. An agreement to pay a note ‘on demand at any time six years from September 7, 1921,’ is not an agreement to pay it ‘on demand at any time within six years from September 7, 1921.’ No point of time less than the six-year period preceding September 7, 1927, answers the call for ‘any time six years from September 7, 1921.’ But any point of time, near or remote, beyond six years from said date, does. Hence we are not called upon to invoke a legal or judicial standard of time, for use only where none is expressed and which must be supplied by construction.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Schoonover v. Caudill

2. ““Of course, if a writing be ambiguous, parol testimony and practical construction by the parties may be resorted to as an aid in arriving at its true meaning. But it is not permissible by such testimony to vary a meaning fairly arising upon the words used.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Velasquez v. Mascarenas

3. ““In consideration of further time granted by Helen M. Miller, the undersigned hereby guarantees payment of the within note on demand at any time six years from September 7, 1921.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Schoonover v. Caudill