Ellis v. Esson’s Empirical Analysis
1880
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 56 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1979 · most notably Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc. (1971), 21 Wis. 2d 182 - Pierringer v. Hoger (1963)
3 federal appellate · 50 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.
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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““. . . when it is apparent that it was not the intention of the parties to discharge or satisfy the debt or claim, but only to relieve one party from all liability to pay the same, the courts have usually avoided the difficulty by construing such contract as a simple contract not to sue the party discharged, and permit the action to proceed against all the parties notwithstanding the contract, leaving the discharged party to his action against the plaintiff for any damage he may sustain by reason of his being sued contrary to the conditions of such contract.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.