open account
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 323 U.S. 111 - Smith v. Davis · 1944Most cited · 142 citing opinions
It is an unsettled claim or demand made by the creditor which appears in his account books. It is not evidenced by any written document whereby the United States, the debtor, has promised to pay this claim at a certain time in the future; nor is there any binding acknowledgement by the United States of the correctness of the claim.
How often courts cite the case defining “open account”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “open account” — 142 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case 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.