Willard v. Tayloe’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

89 federal appellate · 31 district · 114 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 325 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In general it may be said that the specific relief will be granted when it is apparent, from a view of all the circumstances of the particular case, that it will subserve the ends of justice; and that it .will be withheld when, from a like view, it appears that it will produce hardship or injustice to either of the parties. It is not sufficient, as shown by the cases cited, to call forth the equitable interposition of the court, that the legal obligation under the contract to do the specific thing desired may be’ perfect. It must also appear that the specific enforcement will work no hardship or injustice, for if that result would follow, the court will leave the parties to their remedies at law, unless the granting of the specific relief can be accompanied with conditions which will obviate that result.””

   18 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Seaboard Surety Co. v. Racine Screw Co. · Kenner v. Bitely

2. “The only question remaining is, upon what terms shall the decree be made? And upon this we have no doubt. The parties, at the time the proposition to sell, embodied in the covenant of the lease, was made, had reference to the currency then recognized by law as a legal tender, which consisted only of gold and silver coin. It was for a specific number of dollars of that character that the offer to sell was made, and it strikes one at once as inequitable to compel a transfer of the property for notes, worth when tendered in the market only a little more than one-half the stipulated price. Such a substitution of notes for coin could not have been in the possible expectation of the parties. Nor is it reasonable to suppose, if it had been, that the covenant would ever have been inserted in the lease without some provision against the substitution. The complainant must, therefore, take his decree upon payment of the stipulated price in gold and silver coin. Whilst he seeks equity he must do equity.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Inman v. Union Planters National Bank

3. ““The transfer, by the complainant to his brother, of one-half interest in the lease *■ * * in no respect affects the obligation of the defendant, or impairs the right of the complainant to the enforcement of the contract. The brother is no party to the contract, and any partial interest he may have acquired therein the defendant was not bound to notice. The owners of partial interests in contracts for land, acquired subsequent to their execution, are not necessary parties to bills for their enforcement The original parties on one side are not to be mixed up in controversies between the parties on the other side, in which they have no concern. If the entire contract had been assigned to the brother, so that he had become substituted in the place of the complainant, the case would have been different.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cella v. Brown