Steuart v. McChesney’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 6 district · 245 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 472 later decisions — most recently November 2024 · most notably Madison Construction Co. v. Harleysville Mutual Insurance (1999), Hutchison v. Sunbeam Coal Corp. (1986)
29 federal appellate · 6 district · 245 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 Robert F. Felte, Inc. v. White · Easton v. Washington County Insurance · East Crossroads Center, Inc. v. Mellon-Stuart Co. · Atlantic Refining Co. v. Wyoming National Bank · Buhl Foundation v. Board of Property Assessment, Appeals & Review
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 472 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]hen a written contract is clear and unequivocal, its meaning must be determined by its contents alone. It speaks for itself and a meaning cannot be given to it other than that expressed.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Black's Law Dictionary 105 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). In contrast, a latent ambiguity arises from extraneous or collateral facts which make the meaning of a written agreement uncertain although the language thereof, on its face, appears clear and unambiguous. Easton v. Washington County Ins. Co., [391 Pa. 28] 137 A.2d 332 (1957).' 31 Allegheny, 40 F.3d at 1424 (quoting Steuart v. McChesney, 498 Pa. 45, 444 A.2d 659, 663 (1982)). 32 Because of Pennsylvania's presumption that the writing conveys the parties' intent, 33 '[a] contract will be found ambiguous”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“embodied in the writing itself, and when the words are clear and unambiguous the intent is to be discovered only from the express language of the agreement.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Musko v. Musko · Walney v. SWEPI LP
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.