631 So. 2d 832 - Sutton v. Epperson’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently July 2011
7 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 Lake River Corporation v. Carborundum Company · Forsyth v. Central Foundry Co. · Keeble v. Keeble · American District Telegraph Co. v. Roberts & Son, Inc. · 568 So. 2d 784 - MILTON CONST. CO. v. State Highway Dept.
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.
“"Is there any overriding public policy that compels a court to invalidate and hold void this provision of a contract bargained for and agreed upon by two sophisticated businessmen, each of whom was represented by some of the best legal talent in the state? As the Court stated in Milton Construction Co. v. State Highway Dep't, [ 568 So.2d 784 (Ala.1990)], the state constitution protects contractual obligations from impairment by the legislature or the judiciary, and the right of freedom of contract is a cherished one that courts are bound to protect.... [U]nder the facts of this case, we cannot hold that the liquidated damages provision is a penalty, as defined by prior cases, requiring a judicial declaration that this contractual provision is void as against public policy. "This Court set forth the criteria for assessing the validity of liquidated damages clauses in Camelot Music, Inc. v. Marx Realty & Improvement Co., 514 So.2d 987 [at 990] (Ala.1987): "`It is true in Alabama that, because penalty provisions are void as against public policy, "Courts ... are disposed to lean against any interpretation of a contract which will make the provision one for liquidated damages and, in all cases of doubtful intention, will pronounce the stipulated sum a penalty." Cook v. Brown, 408 So.2d 143, 144 (Ala. Civ.App.1981); see also, Keeble v. Keeble, 85 Ala. 552 , 5 So. 149 (1888). In Alabama, liquidated damages are a sum to be paid in lieu of performance, Forsyth v. Central Foundry Co.,”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"`"`if there is one thing which more than another public policy requires it is that men of full age and competent understanding shall have the utmost liberty of contracting, and that their contracts, *Page 820 when entered into freely and voluntarily, shall be enforced by courts of justice.'"'"”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"`As we view this clause, it is but a limitation of the amount recoverable in case of a breach of the contract. It is unlike those contracts or clauses construed by the courts as being invalid because providing a penalty though designated as liquidated damages.... [W]e are not at liberty ... to make a new contract for the parties or to strike ... a clause well understood and evidently within the intention of the parties.'"”
2 later decisions 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.