Murfee v. Porter’s Empirical Analysis
1950
Citation profile
2 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently August 1997 · most notably 164 F. Supp. 451 - United States v. 70.39 Acres of Land (1958), Riverside Fence Co. v. Novak (1969)
2 district · 23 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 Cates v. McNeil · Mariposa Commercial & Mining Co. v. Peters · Walter G. Reese Co. v. House · Smith v. Post · Heine v. Treadwell
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ‘The “exercise” of an option is merely the election of the optionee to purchase the property. ’ (66 C.J. 497.) ‘Except where required by statute to be in writing, an option may be exercised or accepted orally unless the contract requires a written acceptance . . .’ (66 C.J. 499.) ‘. . . payment or tender is not essential unless it is a condition precedent. ’ (66 C.J. 500.) ‘If no time is specified the acceptance must be within what is a reasonable time under the circumstances of the particular case. The principle that time is of the essence of an option generally applies only to acceptance and not to performance. ’ (66 C.J. 503; see, also, 55 Am.Jur. 512.) ‘It is a general rule that an optionor who has given the right to purchase property within a specified time may not do any act or omit to perform any duty calculated to cause the optionee to delay in exercising the right. ’ (55 Am.Jur. 510.) (For a detailed discussion of these general principles see 3 Thompson on Real Property (Perm, ed.), §§ 1325, 1329, 1330, 1331; vol. 8, §§ 4569, 4573.) ‘Once the option to purchase was exercised, the lease and option agreement no longer existed, and a binding contract or purchase and sale came into existence between the parties. (55 Am.Jur. 494; Smith v. Post, 167 Cal. 69 [ 138 P. 705 ]; W. G. Reese Co. v. House, 162 Cal. 740 [ 124 P. 442 ].)’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The option clause gave the respondents a right to purchase the leased premises for the price of six hundred dollars an acre. There is nothing in the option clause which requires payment of the price of the land to be made or tendered when the option right is exercised in order to constitute an acceptance. Payment may or may not be made an essential condition to the exercise of such a right just as the parties see fit to provide for in the option agreement.””
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.