Smith v. Loos’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 30 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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We are of the opinion that the language of the release here involved, together with the testimony of the plaintiff himself, that he read and understood the release to mean just what was stated therein, can lead only to the conclusion that the parties understood and intended that they were effecting settlement for all claims of the plaintiff arising out of the accident, including all claims on account of personal injury, both known and unknown. The fact that the plaintiff and the adjuster were both unaware of the developing hematoma, and the fact that they would not have settled for $150.00 had they known the same, cannot be said to change the clear meaning of the language of the release, or the clear understanding and intent of plaintiff at the time he settled and executed the release. It takes little reflection on the part of most of us to recall instances wherein our acts, entered into and consummated in accordance with our clear purpose and without any equivocation of our intent at the time, when viewed in the light of subsequent developments, appear to have been mistakes. However, the law does not and cannot operate in retrospect to relieve a party from his contractual obligations, deliberately and intentionally assumed, because of the subsequent development of unfortunate and unforeseen results. Smith v. Loos, 78 N.M. 339 , 431 P.2d 72, 76 (1967).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mitzel v. Schatz