Markwardt v. Harrell’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently March 1997
8 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 Weatherford Oil Tool Company v. Campbell · Lewis v. Krueger, Hutchinson and Overton Clinic · Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Wood · Wissman v. Boucher · Southern Surety Co. v. Inabnit
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Contracts not to compete are, by their nature, in restraint of trade and are not favorably regarded by our courts . To be enforceable they must contain stated restraints. Restraints not stated in the contract cannot be established by custom or inference . . . If a contract not to compete contains stated restraints they must be reasonable as to time and space . . . Such unlimited restrictions were unreasonable and not necessary for protection of Markwardt’s business. It follows that the agreement is either void or subject to judicial reformation . . . ””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.