Elerick v. Reid’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The witness was permitted to go into the details of his negotiation with the defendant. His testimony was important, and doubtless had its weight with the jury. Was it admissible in a case of this kind? The transaction was almost contemporaneous with that of Reid. ... We think the evidence of this witness was proper for the purpose of showing fraud. In actions of this kind, the range of inquiry must necessarily be wide. The efforts of Elerick to sell to Walker at his private letter mark, and his statements to him as to what that letter mark represented, bore directly on the question whether his goods were marked as they were for the purpose of perpetrating a fraud on anyone he might be able to entrap. In proving fraud, it is always necessary to ascertain the motive actuating the party charged with the fraud. That motive may be proven by any act or declaration which fairly tends to throw light on the case. Surely the attempted dealings of the defendant with other persons, in which he undertook to make the same kind of a bargain as that made with the plaintiff, are well calculated to explain his motives in this transaction.” (pp. 584, 585.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. People's Bank of Minneapolis v. Reid