Reed v. Alvey’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently July 2024
15 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 Shull v. Sexton · 4 Utah 2d 228 - Continental Bank & Trust Company v. Stewart · Ferris v. Jennings · 2 Utah 2d 309 - Calder v. Third Judicial District Court · Janssen v. Davis
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Before specific performance will be employed by the courts to enforce a contract the terms of the agreement must be reasonably certain so the parties know what is required of them, and definite enough that the courts can delineate the intent of the contracting parties. In reviewing the written agreement evidencing the contract, and any ambiguity inherent in the language used, extrinsic evidence may be considered by the court to delineate the intent of the parties and the enforceability of the contract. Thus, courts are provided a means by which they can look beyond the terms found in the written agreement to ascertain the intent of the contracting parties. If from this examination of the transaction the courts determine the actual contract is certain and the obligation and rights of the parties defined, then they may employ their equitable powers to enforce the contract via specific performance. [Citations omitted.]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“There is no principle in equity that demands all the terms of the contract must be set forth in the written agreement. Rather, although an agreement is uncertain or incomplete in some respects, its specific enforcement may nevertheless be decreed where the uncertainty relates to matters which the law makes certain or complete by presumption, rule or custom, or usage.... When the major aspects of a contract are specified with requisite certainty, this Court will not allow incidental details ... in a contract ... to deny specific performance.”
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.