Mississippi & Dominion Steamship Co. v. Swift’s Empirical Analysis
1894
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 22 district · 61 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 149 later decisions — most recently April 2016 · most notably Rg Group Inc Rg v. Horn & Hardart Company (1984), Consarc Corporation v. Marine Midland Bank Na (1993)
34 federal appellate · 22 district · 61 state decisions — followed in 25 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 Eads v. City of Carondelet · Water Commissioners v. Brown · 10 Mo. App. 101 - Methudy v. Ross · Remick v. Sanborn
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 149 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ‘If the party sought to be charged intended to close a contract prior to the formal signing of a written draft, or if he signified such an intention to the other party, he will be bound by the contract actually made, though the signing of the written draft be omitted. If, on the other hand, such party neither had nor signified such an intention to close the contract until it was fully expressed in a written instrument and attested by signatures, then he will not be bound until the signatures -are affixed. The expression of the idea may be attempted in other words: If the written draft is viewed by the parties merely as a convenient memorial, or record of their previous contract, its absence does not affect the binding force of the contract; if, however, it is viewed as the consummation of the negotiation, there is no contract until the written draft is finally signed.’ ””
10 later decisions quote this exact passage““When parties enter into a general contract, and the understanding is that it is to bo reduced to writing, or if it is already in a written form that it is to be signed before it is to be acted on, or to take effect, it is not binding until it is so written or signed. * * * When correspondence • indicates that a formal draft of a contract was in the minds of the parties, or at least in the mind of the party sought to be charged, as the only authoritative evidence of a contract, and that he did not have, nor signify, any intention to be bound until the written draft had been made and signed, he is not bound until such draft is duly made and signed. * =s * The burden of proof is upon the party claiming the completion of the contract before the written draft thereof is signed.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.