Close v. Wheaton’s Empirical Analysis
1902
Citation profile
16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently May 1952
16 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 Fisher v. Mellen · Lindley v. O'Reilly · Merrill v. Beckwith
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The character of an action for specific performance as in personam entirely is so well established that courts having jurisdiction of the parties frequently entertain suits to compel the execution of contracts for the conveyance of lands in other states in which, of course, their decrees as to the res cannot operate. (Lindley v. O’Reilly, 50 N. J. L. 636, 1 L. R. A. 79, 15 Atl. 379 , 7 Am. St. Rep. 802 .) “Sometimes a question may exist as to whether the complaining party may not have such peculiar interest in the property as to entitle him to the enforcement of a trust, and not of contract merely (Merrill v. Beckwith, 163 Mass. 503 , 40 N. E. 855 ), in which event the action might be local and not transitory, but the plaintiffs in this case have neither stated in their pleadings nor claimed before us such character of right. We are, therefore, well convinced that the inherent nature of the ordinary proceeding to compel a vendor to comply with his contract, as contract, by the execution of a deed, makes the action one in personam, which can be brought' only where the defendant resides or may be legally served with personal process. . . . “Suits for the performance of agreements are not brought to determine titles, because, if so, they would operate on the res, but they are brought to enforce purely personal contracts. Of course, if the defendant obeys the decree the title will pass, and the court may in proper cases order the decree to stand as a conveyance, in which instanc”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.