Johnson v. Harmon’s Empirical Analysis
94 U.S. 371 · 1876
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 2 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 56 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 1995 · most notably Van Iderstine v. National Discount Co. (1913), Hammer v. Garfield Mining & Milling Co. (1889)
17 federal appellate · 2 district · 12 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 Dennett v. Dennett · Van Alst v. Hunter · Young v. Stevens · Robert Brockett et al. v. William Brockett et al.
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.
““Both minds must meet in such a transaction; and if one is so weak, unsound, and diseased that the party is incapable of understanding the nature and quality of the act to be performed, or its consequences, he is incompetent to assent to the terms and conditions of the instrument, whether that state of his mind was produced by mental or physical disease, and whether it resulted from ordinary sickness, or from accident, or from debauchery, or from habitual and protracted intemperance.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Parker v. Marco · Hauber v. Leibold““A bill of exceptions cannot be taken on the trial of a feigned issue directed by a court of equity, or, if taken, can only be used on a motion for a new trial made to said court. 2 Daniells, Ch. Prac. (3d Am. Ed.) 1106; Armstrong v. Armstrong, 3 Mylne & K. 52; Ex parte Story, 12 Pet. 343 , 9 L. Ed. HOS. See the cases on new trials on feigned issues collected in 3 Grab. & W. New Trials, 1553, etc. The issue is directed to be tried for the purpose of informing the conscience of the chancellor, and aiding him to come to a proper conclusion. If he thinks the trial has not been a lair one, or for any other reason desires a new trial, it is in his discretion to order it. But he may proceed with the cause, though dissatisfied with the verdict, and make a decree contrary thereto, if, in his judgment, the law and the evidence so require. A decree in equity, therefore, when appealed from, does not stand or fall according to the legality or illegality of the proceedings on the trial of a feigned issue in the cause, for the verdict may or may not have been the ground of the decree. It is the duty of the court of first instance to decide (as was done here) upon the whole case, pleadings, evidence, and verdict, giving to the latter so much effect as it is worth. An appeal from the decree must be decided in the same way, namely, upon the whole case, and cannot be made to turn on the correctness or incorrectness of the judge’s.rulings at the trial of the feigned issue.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Imbecility of mind is not of itself sufficient to set aside a contract, when there is not an essential privation of the reasoning faculties, or an incapacity of understanding and acting with discretion in the ordinary affairs of life.’’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Moore v. Gilbert
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.