Allen v. McKibbin’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 29 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Where a party fails to comply substantially with an agreement, unless it is apportionable, the rule is well settled that he cannot sue upon the agreement or recover upon it at all. And under the strict common-law rule he was remediless. But the doctrine has now grown up, based upon equitable principles, that where anything has been done from which the other party has received substantial benefit, and which he has appropriated, a recovery may be had upon a quantum meruit, based on that benefit. And the basis of this recovery is not the original contract, but a new implied agreement, deducible from the delivery and acceptance of some valuable service or thing.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Manistee Navigation Co. v. Filer

2. ““The defaulting plaintiff can in no case recover more than the contract price, and cannot recover that if his work is not reasonably worth it, or if by paying it the rest of the work will cost the defendant more than if the whole had been completed under the contract. The party in default can never gain by his default, and the other party can never be permitted to lose by it; and the price thus determined is the true amount recoverable on a quantum meruit.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Phelps v. Beebe