Campbell v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

42 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In many of the cases cited there was no valid executory contract for the sale of the land, but the grantor permitted the deed to be delivered by the depositary to the grantee upon performance of the parol conditions of the deposit. Undoubtedly, the final delivery to the grantee in such cases operated to pass the title; as it .would in the present case had the defendant seen fit to allow his void parol agreement to be thus consummated. In other cases cited there was a compliance with the statute of frauds. Everts v. Agnes, 4 Wis. 343 , is one of them. But we have not discovered a single case in which it has been held that one who has deposited a deed of land with a third person with directions to deliver it to the grantee on the happening of a given event, but who has made no valid executory contract to convey the land, may not revoke the directions to the depositary and recall the deed at any time before the conditions of the deposit have been complied with; provided those conditions are such that the title does not pass at once to the grantee upon delivery of the deed to the depositary.” Page 450.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Jozefowicz v. Leickem

2. ““I have no doubt that an escrow may be proved by parol. The difficulty here is not in the proof of the alleged escrow, but in the proof of the contract of sale and purchase itself. When there is a valid contract under the statute, the papers constituting it, or executed in compliance with it, may be delivered in escrow, and the escrow may be proved' by parol. But the validity of the escrow rests on the validity of the contract; and the validity of the contract rests on the statute.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McLain v. Healy

3. ““We so fas adopt it here as to hold that, if a person who has made a parol agreement to sell land sign an instrument in the form of a conveyance of such land, to the vendee, and deposit it in escrow, if such instrument contains the terms of the parol agreement, including the consideration, it is a sufficient compliance with the requirements of the statute of frauds.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Simpson v. Green