Codding v. Munson’s Empirical Analysis
1897
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently September 1975
2 federal appellate · 8 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.
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"... This principal having no legal status, the instruction should have been that Codding was liable unless the agreement was that Munson was to look solely to the subscriptions... ." (Emphasis added).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““ It is the general rule that one who assumes to act as agent for a principal who has no legal status or existence renders himself individually liable on contracts .so made. * * * This doctrine receives its most frequent application in cases like the present, where a person or committee incurs obligations as the result of instructions given by a body gathered together informally for a special purpose, and possessing no definite membership or continued power of existence. The rule is founded upon a presumption of fact, and is not the expression of any positive or rigid legal principle. The presumption referred to is that the parties to a contract contemplate the creation of a legal obligation capable of enforcement, and that, therefore, it is understood that the obligation shall rest on the individuals who actively participate in the making of the contract, because of the difficulty in all cases — the impossibility in many — of fixing it upon the persons taking part in or submitting to the action of the evanescent assemblage. If, however, the person with whom the contract is made expressly agrees to look to another source for the performance of its obligations, or if the circumstances be such as to disclose an intention not to charge the agent, as where the other agrees to accept the proceeds of a particular fund, there is no longer reason to indulge the presumption, and it may be rebutted by proof of such facts. [Citing cases] “Applying these principles to the case at bar, th”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Haldeman v. Addison
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.