Diamond v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 1 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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “since even if it does constitute an option, there is no realistic prospect that the robot would ever be exploited in any trade or business carried on by any one other than Elco.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Harris v. Commissioner · Alexander v. Commissioner

2. “Elco was not required to furnish additional consideration to the Project Partnership or Robotics, and could exercise the option granted by section 5(a)(iii) at any time. In the exercise of sound business judgment, Elco would surely exercise its right under section 5(a)(iii) if the project was anticipated to be profitable enough to justify incurring the costs of manufacturing and marketing the robot. Elco would already have in place part of the infrastructure necessary for it to pursue those activities, since Elco was itself a high technology firm, and it and/or its subsidiary performed the research and development work. However, should the robot appear to be unprofitable, Elco would decline to exercise its rights under section 5(a)(iii), leaving the project partnership or Robotics with the right to develop an asset whose costs would not appear to justify additional investment. Absent Elco’s participation, neither of these parties would have the necessary infrastructure to undertake to manufacture the robot, although Robotics’ general partners, Yaakov and Goldman, had the expertise and contacts necessary to secure the robot’s manufacturing and marketing through other channels if it could be done profitably.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Diamond v. Commissioner · Louis H. Diamond, Madelene Diamond v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

3. “Following this assignment, the partnership's activities were purely ministerial; the taxpayers were no more than mere investors.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cactus Wren Jojoba, Ltd. v. Commissioner · Stankevich v. Commissioner