Lawrence v. Boles’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The trustee contends that this testimony by Boles on the attorney’s fee issue was inadmissible because it was an ‘offer to compromise’ a dispute. Offers to settle or compromise a suit are usually excluded at trial because it is the public policy of the law to encourage the settlement of controverted claims. See Ray, Law of Evidence, § 1142 (1980), and cases cited therein. In the instant case, Boles offered the testimony as evidence that the suit was filed unnecessarily. There was no policy reason for excluding the testimony, and the trial court did not err in admitting it. “In other words, the reason for excluding settlement offers from evidence is to protect the party offering to settle from having such offers introduced against him at trial. The judicial system should encourage settlements, yet the introduction of settlement offers would tend to discourage the same. However, here it was the party offering to settle the dispute who introduced the evidence as a defense against the imposition of attorney’s fees. We think the evidence was properly admitted and supported the jury’s finding on the reasonable value of the attorney’s fees.” p. 769.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ettus v. Orkin Exterminating Co.