Hampton v. Buchanan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There is no authority which would permit a corporation to enter into a contract which would place the trustees under obligations to disregard the duty they owed to the stockholders, viz., to promote the business interests of the corporation; and, this they certainly could not do if they were so fettered by contract that they could not dismiss an employee and act freely and purely for the business interests of the stockholders when emergencies arose. The granting of such powers as are relied upon by the respondent through this agreement would virtually deprive the stockholders of the right to elect their trustees. Therefore, equity will not assume jurisdiction to compel the specific performance of an illegal contract. That such a contract is illegal all authority asserts; but see especially, West v. Camden, 135 U. S. 507 , 10 Sup. Ct. 838, 34 L. Ed. 254 , and Reed v. Johnson, 27 Wash. 42 , 67 Pac. 381 , 51 L. R. A. 404. The policy of the law is not changed by the fact that the stockholders are many or few.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Horejs v. American Plumbing & Steam Supply Co.