Cattell v. Jefferson’s Empirical Analysis
51 F.2d 317 · 1931
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently March 2007
2 federal appellate · 6 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 Kennedy v. Hazelton · Hennessey v. Woolworth · Smith v. Bangham · Halsell v. Renfrow · McCabe v. Matthews
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Specific performance, being not a matter of right but resting in discretion, will usually be denied against a vendor unable to comply with his contract for lack of title, although his lack of title may result from his own act, or, as here, from his omission to act. * * * As Justice Gray states the rule in Kennedy v. Hazelton, 128 U.S. [667] 671, 9 S.Ct. 202 , 32 L.Ed. 576 : `A court of chancery cannot decree specific performance of an agreement to convey property which has no existence, or to which the defendant has no title.'”
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.