Swift v. Aspell & Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 2 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A person having something to sell has the right to sell it through an agent, and this right is an incident to his ownership. To declare that he may not employ an agent, upon commission, where the government is the prospective buyer, is to take away what is ordinarily one of the elements of the enjoyment of ownership — the unrestricted right to sell. Upon this line of reasoning, commission agreements for a sale to the government have been upheld and enforced in this state where the agreement did not actively require corruption in its performance. Treated as a matter distinct in its nature from agreements to procure legislation, an agreement to compensate an agent for his successful efforts in traffic with the government has been held binding, where unfairness in the dealings or an intention to resort to corruption did not actually appear from the facts.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Millspaugh v. McKnab