Pollack v. Pollack’s Empirical Analysis
1931
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 68 later decisions — most recently April 2015 · most notably Crouch v. Crouch (1978), American Nat. Ins. Co. v. Fox (1944)
10 federal appellate · 57 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 Roehm v. Horst · Vicksburg v. Putnam · Horace Dunbar v. Lottie E Dunbar · Pierce v. Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad · Dingley v. Oler
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 68 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e hold that Henry, having not only failed and refused to meet the monthly payment due on the contract, but, on the other hand, having absolutely repudiated the obligation, all without just excuse, has breached the contract, and therefore Charles is entitled to maintain his action in damages at once for the entire breach, and is entitled in one suit to receive in damages the present value of all that he would have received if the contract had been performed, and he is not compelled to resort to repeated suits to recover the monthly payments.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The intention to abandon the contract at some future date is no breach of it; but, when that intention is declared in positive terms and unconditionally, it has the effect ... to repudiate the contract itself, and to terminate the contractual relations between the parties. . But, to have this effect, the declaration of an intention not to perform the contract in the future must be unconditional in its terms.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Dudley v. Born · McKenzie v. Farr“But if the breach has been such that the plaintiff has the right to treat the contract as absolutely and finally broken .by the defendant, and he elects so to treat it, the damages are assessed as of a total breach of the entire contract. * * * Sneli damages are not special or prospective damages, but are the damages naturally resulting from a total breach of the contract, and are suffered when the eouiraet is broken, and are assessed as of that time. From the nature of the contract they include damages for not performing the contract in the future as well as in the past. The value of the contract to the plaintiff at the time it is broken may be somewhat indifinito because the duration of the life of the plaintiff is uncertain, but uncertainty in the duration of a life has not, since the adoption of life tables, been regarded as a reason why full relief in damages should not be afforded for failure to perform a contract which by its terms was to continue for life. When defendant for example, absolutely refuses to perform such a contract after the time for entering upon the performance has begun, it would be a great hardship to compel the plaintiff to be ready at all times during bis life to be supported by the defendant, if the defendant should at any time change his mind; and to hold that he must resort to successive actions from time to time to obtain his damages piecemeal, or else leave them to be recovered as an entirety by his personal representatives after his death. 13”
1 later decision 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.