Smith v. Cansler’s Empirical Analysis
1885
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently December 1957
1 federal appellate · 14 state decisions
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.
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Mutuality of obligation is, in general, necessary to the validity of a contract; and it is a general rule that, in order to be binding, it must be enforceable by either party. If, however, one is not invested with such a title as he undertakes by his contract to make to a purchaser, yet if time be not of the essence of it, and he is able to make title when the time for performance arrives, and tenders the deed, then it will be enforced, although his title was defective at the date of the contract; and in such a case, if a rescission be asked by the other party, and the vendor is not able at the time of the institution of a suit for this purpose to comply with the contract, yet, if he can perfect the title within a reasonable time, the court will afford him an opportunity to do so.””
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.