Sawyer v. Arum’s Empirical Analysis
690 F.2d 590 · 1982
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently December 2016 · most notably Tigg Corp. v. Dow Corning Corp. (1987), Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians v. Engler (1998)
34 federal appellate · 1 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 Walling US v. General Industries Co · Weingarden v. United States · Drayton v. Jiffee Chemical Corp. · Goodwin, Inc v. Orson E Coe Pontiac, Inc · Thompson v. National Railroad Passenger Corp.
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he factual conclusions rendered by a district court sitting without a jury are binding on appeal unless this Court is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Even where the writing is not ambiguous on its face, the circumstances under which the parties’ contract may be looked at to establish an ambiguity, as well as to indicate the proper choice of possible meanings, and the common knowledge and the understanding of the parties themselves as shown by their previous negotiations is sometimes such a circumstance.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“in the absence of anything to indicate a contrary interpretation, instruments executed at the same time by the same parties, for the same purpose and in the course of the same transaction will be read together, it being said that they are, in the eye of the law, one instrument.”
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.