Collins v. McCombs’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently January 2002 · most notably 42 Cal. 3d 490 - Frances T. v. Village Green Owners Assn. (1986), Haase v. Glazner (2002)
10 federal appellate · 20 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 George v. Hesse · 65 So. 2d 849 - Canell v. Arcola Housing Corp. · City of Tyler v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. · Paschall v. Anderson · Sibley v. Southland Life Ins. Co.
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he judicial disregard of the statute should be limited to situations in which the essence of the action truly sounds in tort. Where plaintiff, although casting his complaint in the form of a cause of action for fraud, is attempting to recover damages for the breach of the promise, it is clear that he is, in effect, attempting to enforce the oral agreement. Where, as here, plaintiff is seeking to recover what he would have gained had the promise been perfomed, [it] is evident that the gist of his cause of action is the breach of the unenforceable promise.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““Even if it be conceded that an action in tort for [misrepresentation] is unaffected by the provisions of the statute of frauds, the judicial disregard of the statute should be limited to situations in which the essence of the action truly sounds in tort.... Since plaintiff is here seeking to recover what he would have gained had the promise been performed, it is apparent that his action, while cast in language sounding in tort, is an indirect attempt to recover for the breach of the unenforceable promise and is, therefore, barred by the statute of frauds. See Canell v. Arcola Housing Corp., 65 So.2d 849 (Fla.Sup.1953); Papanikolas v. Sampson, 73 Utah 404 , 274 P. 856 (1929).””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“Considered in a contractual aspect, his promise would probably be subject to the rule invoked. But, as has already been shown, the cause of action growing out of such promise, which the [plaintiff] asserts herein, is grounded in tort and not in contract. Responsibility for the tort committed is not affected by the fact that the false promise was made orally.”
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.