Butler v. Maples’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 7 district · 20 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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The distinction between a general and a special agency is in most cases a plain one. The purpose of the latter is a single transaction, or a transaction with designated persons. It does not leave to the agent any discretion as to the persons with whom he may contract for the principal, if ho bo empowered to make more than one contract. Authority to buy for a principal a single article of merchandise by one contract, or to buy several articles from a per son named, is a special agency, but authority to make purchases from any persons with whom the agent may choose to deal, or to make an indefinite number of purchases, is a general agency. And it is not the’ less a general agency because it does not extend oyer the whole business of the principal. A man may have many general agents — one to buy cotton, another to buy wheat, and another to buy horses. So he may have a general ágent to buy cotton in one neighborhood, and another general agent to buy cotton in another neighborhood. The distinction between the two kinds of agencies is that the one is created by power given to do acts of a class, and the other by power given to do individual acts only. Whether, therefore, an agency is general or special, is wholly independent of the question whether the power to act within the scope of the authority given is unrestricted, or whether it is restricted by instructions or conditions imposed by the principal relative to the mode of its exercise.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Chickasha Nat. Bank · 926 F. Supp. 2d 794 - United States v. Kolon Industries, Inc.

2. “It was a delegation of authority to buy cotton in Desha County and its vicinity, to buy generally, from whomsoever the agent, not his principals, might determine. It had in view not merely a single transaction, or a number of specified transactions, which were in the mind of the principals when the agent was appointed, but a class of purchases, a department of business. It is true that it contained guards and restrictions which were intended as regulations between the parties, but they were secret instructions rather than limitations. They were not intended to be communicated to the parties with whom the agent should deal, and they never were communicated.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 926 F. Supp. 2d 794 - United States v. Kolon Industries, Inc.

3. “[A] principal is bound by all that his general agent has done within the scope of the business in which he was employed, and this, though the agent may have violated special or secret instructions given him, but not disclosed to the party with whom the agent deals.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cange v. Stotler & Co.