Hunter v. Sparling’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 2 district · 109 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 130 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably 24 Cal. 4th 317 - Guz v. Bechtel National, Inc. (2000), 15 Cal. 3d 838 - In Re Marriage of Brown (1976)
8 federal appellate · 2 district · 109 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.
Relationships
Relies on Seymour v. Oelrichs · 29 Cal. 2d 848 - Kern v. City of Long Beach · 17 Cal. 2d 775 - French v. French · 6 Cal. 2d 575 - Dryden v. Board of Pension Commissioners · 48 Cal. App. 2d 762 - Falk v. Falk
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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]here is little reason to make a distinction between the periods before and after the pension payments are due. It is true that an employee does not earn the right to a full pension until he has completed the prescribed period of service, but he has actually earned some pension rights as soon as he has performed substantial services for his employer. [Citations omitted.] He ... has then earned certain pension benefits, the payment of which is to be made at a future date.... [T]he mere fact that performance is in whole or in part dependent upon certain contingencies does not prevent a contract from arising, and the employing governmental body may not deny or impair the contingent liability any more than it can refuse to make the salary payments which are immediately due. Clearly, it cannot do so after all the contingencies have happened, and in our opinion it cannot do so at any time after a contractual duty to make salary payments has arisen, since a part of the compensation which the employee has at that time earned consists of his pension rights.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance of a definite and substantial character on the part of the promisee and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“A promises B to pay him an annuity during B’s life. B thereupon resigns a profitable employment, as A expected that he might. B receives the annuity for some years, in the meantime becoming disqualified from again obtaining good employment. A’s promise is binding.”
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.