Smith v. Old Warson Development Company’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 80 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 84 later decisions — most recently April 2014 · most notably Commonwealth v. Monumental Properties, Inc. (1974), 115 Wash. 2d 506 - ATHERTON CONDO APARTMENT-OWNERS ASS'N BD OF DIRECTORS v. Blume Dev. Co. (1990)
2 federal appellate · 80 state decisions — followed in 20 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 Keener v. Dayton Electric Manufacturing Company · Waggoner v. Midwestern Development, Inc. · Humber v. Morton · Wawak v. Stewart · 76 Wash. 2d 428 - House v. Thornton
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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[ T]he purchase of a residence is in most cases the purchase of a manufactured product — the house. The land involved is seldom the prime element in such a purchase, certainly not in the urban areas of the state. The structural quality of a house, by its very nature, is nearly impossible to determine by inspection after the house is built, since many of the most important elements of its construction are hidden from view. The ordinary “consumer” can determine little about the soundness of the construction but must rely upon the fact that the vendor-builder holds the structure out to the public as fit for use as a residence, and of being of reasonable quality (emphasis added).”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage“However, it should be recognized that the rationale for allowing recovery by a purchaser of a new house, on a theory of breach of an implied warranty of habitability or quality, is applicable only against that person who not only had an opportunity to observe but failed to correct a structural defect, which, in turn, became latent, i.e., the builder-vendor.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The test is, of course, 'reasonableness' and that is essentially a fact issue for the jury. Plaintiffs presented evidence that the decrease in value of the house because of the defect was $13,500. [ ] There was evidence that $6,000 would be required to remedy the defect, and there was considerable testimony and photograph evidence of the condition of the premises as a result of the defect. [ ] There was sufficient evidence to entitle a jury to find a lack of reasonable quality and fitness. 479 S.W.2d at 800 .”
1 later decision 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.