fair market value
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 317 U.S. 369 - United States v. Miller · 1943Most cited · 2,772 citing opinions
The term 'fair' hardly adds anything to the phrase 'market value', which denotes what 'it fairly may be believed that a purchaser in fair market conditions would have given', or, more concisely, 'market value fairly determined'. It is usually said that market value is what a willing buyer would pay in cash to a willing seller.
How the Supreme Court has restated “fair market value”
Each Supreme Court definition of “fair market value,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “fair market value”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “fair market value” — 4,292 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1943–1973
what 'a willing buyer would pay in cash to a willing seller' in a fair market
what a willing buyer would pay in cash to a willing seller
The owner is entitled to the fair market value of his property at the time of the taking... value is normally to be ascertained from 'what a willing buyer would pay in cash to a willing seller.