Benedict v. Spendiff’s Empirical Analysis
1889
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently November 2021
5 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 Watson v. Francisco & Humboldt Bay Railroad · Donnelly v. Clark · Whiteside v. Logan
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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In the case of Watson v. San Francisco etc. R. R. Co., 41 Cal. 20 , the court says: “As a general rule, however, in cases where, as here, the application is made so immediately after default entered as that no considerable delay to the plaintiff is to be occasioned by permitting a defense on the merits, the court ought to incline to relieve. The exercise of the mere discretion of the court ought to tend, in a reasonable degree at least, to bring about a judgment on the very merits of the case; and, when the circumstances are such as to lead the court to hesitate upon the motion to open the default, it is better, as a general rule, that the doubt should be resolved in favor of the application.” The above, we think, recites the correct principle which should guide courts on a question of this kind.”
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.