73 Wash. 2d 307 - Wood v. May’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably 171 W. Va. 368 - Reddy v. Community Health Foundation of Man (1982), Philip G. Johnson & Co. v. Salmen (1982)
1 federal appellate · 46 state decisions — followed in 13 states
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 Arthur Murray Dance Studios of Cleveland, Inc. v. Witter · Fullerton Lumber Co. v. Torborg · Racine v. Bender · Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly · 33 Del. Ch. 4 - John Roane, Inc. v. Tweed
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Whether a covenant is reasonable involves a consideration of three factors: (1) whether restraint is necessary for the protection of the business or goodwill of the employer, (2) whether it imposes upon the employee any greater restraint than is reasonably necessary to secure the employer’s business or goodwill, and (3) whether the degree of injury to the public is such loss of the service and skill of the employee as to warrant nonenforcement of the covenant.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“are not greater than are reasonably necessary to protect the business or good will of the employer ...”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“If a sharply defined line separated a restraint which is excessive territorially from such restraint as is permissible, there seems no reason why effect should not be given to a restrictive promise indivisible in terms, to the extent that it is lawful. If it be said that the attempt to impose an excessive restraint invalidates the whole promise, a similar attempt should invalidate a whole contract, though the promises are in terms divisible. Questions involving legality of contracts should not depend on form. Public policy surely is not concerned to distinguish differences of wording in agreements of identical meaning.”
1 later decision 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.