Townshend v. Goodfellow’s Empirical Analysis
1889
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently January 1979 · most notably Easton v. Montgomery (1891), Miller v. Snedeker (1960)
2 federal appellate · 46 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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 Shriver v. . Shriver · Dresel v. Jordan · Jackson ex dem. Anderson v. Anderson · Jenkins v. . Fahey · Beaman v. Whitney
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“One who speculates upon that of which he has no control or the means of acquiring it is not a bona fide contractor. But the general rule is that, where a contract is entered into in good faith, it is not necessary that the vendor be actually in the situation to perform it at the time it is entered into, provided he be able at the proper time to place himself in that situation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Armstrong v. Palmer
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.