Insurance Company v. Wilkinson’s Empirical Analysis
80 U.S. 222 · 1871
Citation profile
116 federal appellate · 15 district · 250 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 459 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2021 · most notably Glus v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (1959), Northern Assurance Company of London v. Grand View Building Association (1902)
116 federal appellate · 15 district · 250 state decisions — followed in 44 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 City of Davenport v. Peoria Marine & Fire Insurance · Ayres v. Hartford Fire Insurance · City of Clinton v. Grusendorf · Wilkinson v. Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance
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 459 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“where one party has by his representations or his conduct induced the other party to a transaction to give him an advantage which it would be against equity and good conscience for him to assert, he would not in a court of justice be permitted to avail himself of that advantage.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““By the interested or officious zeal of the agents employed by the insurance companies in the wish to outbid each other and procure customers, they not unfrequently mislead the insured, by a false or erroneous statement, of what the application should contain, or, taking the preparation of it into their own hands, procure his signature by an assurance that it is properly drawn, and will meet the requirements of the policy. The better opinion seems to he that, when this course is pursued, the description of the risk should, though nominally proceeding from the insured, be regarded as the act of the insurers.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In the Eifth Edition of American Leading Cases, 917, after a full consideration of the authorities, it is said: ‘By the interested or officious zeal of the agents employed by the insurance companies in the wish to outbid each other and procure customers, they not infrequently mislead the insured, by a false or erroneous statement of what the application should contain; or, taking the preparation of it into their own hands, procure his signature by an assurance that it is properly drawn, and will meet the requirements of the policy. The better opinion seems to be that, when this course is pursued, the description of the risk should, though nominally proceeding from the insured, be regarded as the act of the insurers.’ Rowley v. Ins. Co., 36 N. Y. 550 . The modern decisions fully sustain this proposition, and they seem to us founded in reason and justice, and meet our entire approval. This principle does not admit oral testimony to vary or contradict that which is in writing, but it goes upon the idea that the writing offered in evidence was not the instrument of the party whose name is signed to it; that it was procured under such circumstances by the other side as estops that side from using it or relying on its contents; not that it may be contradicted by oral testaimony, but that it may be shown by such testimony that it cannot1 be lawfully used against the party whose name is signed to it.””
2 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.