Hood v. Smiley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The plaintiff in his reply admitted the making of the contract, and upon the trial introduced in evidence the plans of the house he had agreed to erect. Under such circumstances, the presumption is that the contract continued until something to the contrary was shown. It is the common experience of men that changes and alterations in the original plans and specifications of buildings are the rule, and not the exception, and the legal rule seems to be well established, as stated by counsel for plaintiff in error, ‘that where additions are ordered to be made, and are made, to a building which a workman has contracted to furnish for a certain sum, the original contract is held to exist as far as it can be traced to have been followed, and the excess must be paid for according to its reasonable value;’ and it is only where the alterations and changes are so great that it is impossible to follow the original contract that it will be deemed to have been wholly abandoned, so that the contractor can recover upon a quantum meruit. So long as it can be traced, it is binding upon both of the parties, and, when once shown to have existed, the burden is upon the party who claims its abandonment, and thereby seeks to lay down another measure of the value of the work than that agreed upon by both parties to the contract. It is, we think, entirely clear from the record that the court did not conclude from the evidence that the original contract had been abandoned, and we are of opinion that”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lasich v. Wimpenney