Dunn v. Price’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

56 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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There was no express promise to pay anything in this case, nor do we think that one can be clearly implied from the language used. If one requests another to perform a service for him, the law will ordinarily imply a promise to compensate him for the work. But, when one having property to sell tells a broker that if he will bring him a purchaser he will sell at a certain price, it is by no means certain that he intends to imply a promise to pay a commission. The broker may get his compensation from the purchaser. In this case the defendant did not authorize the plaintiff to sell his property, nor did he employ him to sell it. He merely said to him, in effect, that if he would bring him a purchaser he would show him that he would sell for the sum of $30,000. Can it be said that it is clear that the defendant did not expect him to get his compensation from the purchaser whom'he might procure? That such was his intention (if indeed his language was anything more than mere idle banter) is shown by the fact that his language was that he would take $30,000 for the property, and that there is not an expression in it to indicate that he was "willing to take that sum less a commission for selling. This conclusion is strengthened by the further fact that he had previously declined to employ the plaintiff to make the sale.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Philip A. Ryan Lumber Co. v. Ball