Miga v. Jensen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 78 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 89 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Miga’s] only evidence of “lost profits” was the increased market value of [the company’s] stock, and the jury’s award coincided with the stock’s market value at the time of trial. But an increase in the market value of goods never delivered under a contract is not the same as lost profits. Lost profits are damages for the loss of net income to a business measured by reasonable certainty. Here, there was no evidence before the jury that Miga suffered reasonably certain business losses resulting from Jensen’s breach.... Miga did not testify about what particular profit he expected, or that the parties contemplated a particular resale of the stock; in fact, Miga testified that he would not have sold it.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Robert B. Allen v. Devon Energy Holdings, L.L.C. F/K/A Chief Holdings, L.L.C, and Trevor D. Rees-Jones · D Magazine Partners, L.P. v. Rosenthal

2. “"Post-judgment interest is not a punishment inflicted on a judgment debtor for exercising the right to appeal. Instead, like pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest is simply compensation for a judgment creditor's lost opportunity to invest the money awarded as damages at trial. When a judgment creditor has received an unconditional tender of the money awarded, and may invest it as he chooses, there is no need for the continuing accrual of post-judgment interest. This is true whether or not an appeal of the underlying judgment is ongoing."”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Coors Brewing Co. v. City of Golden · BIRMINGHAM PAIN CENTER, INC. v. Cosgrove

3. “Measuring these damages at the time of breach also has the support of other jurisdictions. The New York Court of Appeals, after noting that “[t]he proper measure of damages for breach of contract is determined by the loss sustained or gain prevented at the time and place of breach,” held that “[t]he rule is precisely the same when the breach of contract is nondelivery of shares of stock.” As the Second Circuit has reasoned, “[m]easuring contract damages by the value of the item at the time of the breach is eminently sensible and actually takes expected lost future profits into account. The value of assets for which there is a market is the discounted value of the stream of future income that the assets are expected to produce.” For this reason, New York courts have “explicitly upheld damage awards based on what ‘knowledgeable investors anticipated the future conditions and performance would be at the time of the breach’ and have rejected awards based on what ‘the actual economic conditions and performance’ were in light of hindsight.” Thus, the “damage award resulting from a breach of an agreement to purchase securities is the difference between the contract price and the fair market value of the asset at the time of breach, not the difference between the contract price and the value of the shares sometime subsequent to the breach.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 329 F. Supp. 2d 477 - RA MACKIE & CO., LP v. Petrocorp Inc.