The Harriman’s Empirical Analysis
76 U.S. 161 · 1869
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 11 district · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2001 · most notably Republic of France v. French Overseas Corporation the Malcolm Baxter Jr (1928), Jacksonville Ry Nav Co v. Hooper (1896)
15 federal appellate · 11 district · 16 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Fisk v. Newton
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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In Pardine v. Jane [Alleyn 26], the court said: ‘When the party by his own contract creates a duty or charge upon himself he is bound to make it good if he may, notwithstanding any accident by inevitable necessity, because he might have guarded against it by his contract/ Such has always been the rule of the common law. If a lessee covenant to repair, and the house is burned down, he is bound to rebuild. If a party covenant to build a bridge and keep it in repair for a specified time, and it be swept away by an extraordinary flood before the time expires, he must replace it. A party agreed to secure in England for another the exclusive right to make, use, and vend in the Canadas a machine covered by a patent from the United States. It was found that this could only be done by an act of the British Parliament. As such a grant, however improbable, was not impossible, it was held that the case was within the rule laid down in Paradme v. Jane, and that the covenantor was liable for the breach of his agreement. * * * The principle deducible from the" authorities is that, if what is agreed to be done is possible and lawful, it must be done. Difficulty or improbability of accomplishing the undertaking will not avail the defendant. It must be shown that the thing cannot by any means be effected. Nothing short of this will excuse nonperformance. The answer to the objection of hardship in all such cases is that it might have been guarded against by a proper stipulation. It is the prov”
6 later decisions 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.