Sound Techniques, Inc. v. Hoffman’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 9 district · 44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 71 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Rodi v. Southern New England School of Law (2004), Marram v. Kobrick Offshore Fund, Ltd. (2004)
9 federal appellate · 9 district · 44 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 McEvoy Travel Bureau, Inc. v. Norton Co. · Bates v. Southgate · 24 Mass. App. Ct. 188 - Sheehy v. Lipton Industries, Inc. · 32 Mass. App. Ct. 248 - Chase Commercial Corp. v. Owen · Snyder v. Lovercheck
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 71 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is nothing in the evidence before us that shows or even suggests that the integrity of the bargaining process was tainted by illegality, fraud, duress, unconscionability, or any other invalidating cause. The lease was not a contract of adhesion . . . Nothing suggests that the bargaining powers of the parties were unequal. Indeed, the evidence showed that [the plaintiff] was represented by counsel throughout the negotiation process and its acceptance of the lease was conditioned upon an inspection by an [expert] that was in fact conducted. Based upon the evidence presented and the public policy of this Commonwealth, there is no reasonable basis for ignoring the plain language of the merger clause, in which [the plaintiff] agreed that it was entering the contract free from influence by or in reliance upon any representations other than those set out in the contract.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Whether we refer to the clause in question as a merger clause, an integration clause, or an exculpatory clause, the settled rule of law is that a contracting party cannot rely upon such a clause as protection against claims based upon fraud or deceit.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“ignore our general policy of upholding freedom to contract by allowing [plaintiff] to avoid a contractual disclaimer that it agreed to, uninfluenced by any fraud or other egregious or intentional misbehavior on [defendant's] part”
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.