Jones v. Kelley’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 115 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 154 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably Fort Worth Independent School District v. City of Fort Worth (2000), Mack v. Newton (1984)
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 115 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 Wilson v. Fisher · Veal v. Thomason · Miles v. Martin · Pickett v. Bishop · Smith Et Ux. v. Sorelle
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 154 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Looking at the complete transaction it was the clear intent of both the Joneses and the Kelleys that the execution of the four documents was for the primary purpose of conveying all the subject property to the Kelleys. The property was listed by the real estate agent as one tract and the Kelleys intended to purchase the entire tract. Financing through the Veterans Land Board was only a means of achieving this objective. The Veterans Land Board was only interested in aiding Kelley, a veteran, in his purchase of the property and not in any acquisition of its own. The Joneses and Mr. Kelley executed the Veterans Land Board documents at the Joneses’ daughter’s home in Sheldon. Both of the earnest money contracts refer to the Veterans Land Board. The execution of four documents in this instance was only a means of accomplishing the singular and primary purpose of conveying the Jones-es’ entire tract to the Kelleys.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he trial court properly concluded as a matter of law that the two contracts should be construed together and treated as one contract, the rule being that separate contracts executed at the same time, for the same purpose and in the course of the same transaction are to be considered as one instrument and this may be so even though they are not between the same parties.... The contracts when construed together, in the light of the acts of the parties, constitute a transaction in which the consideration flowed from PPG in the form of the full purchase price and PPG in turn received the bargained-for consideration in the form of title to and ownership of three million gallons of the diesel oil then contained in Fina’s tanks.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““This Act is remedial in character and is intended to apply to all pending and future actions, regardless of the time of institution thereof or of the accrual of any cause of action asserted.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.