Spurlin in American case law

A CourtListener search for opinions with "Spurlin" in the case name returned about 90 results in September 2026.^[1] Most involve private parties in ordinary disputes. The decisions below are published appellate opinions whose full text was checked, mostly in the Caselaw Access Project. They are summarized neutrally and only for their legal points. Four of them have their own articles: Spurlin v. General Motors, People v. Spurlin, United States v. Spurlin and Board of Education v. Spurlin.

Nineteenth-century cases

• Spurlin v. Rutherford, 6 N.C. (2 Mur.) 360 (1818). This is the oldest case found. It came up from Burke County, North Carolina. Under an 1806 agreement, Rutherford was to let Spurlin have a still and 300 bushels of corn, and Spurlin was to make him 600 gallons of whiskey, after which the still would become Spurlin's. Spurlin sued in 1815 over the still. The Supreme Court of North Carolina set aside a jury verdict in his favor and ordered a new trial. It held that the action was barred by the statute of limitations and refused to let the jury's disregard of that defense stand, since nothing showed that justice had been done on the merits.^[2]
• Spurlin v. Millikin, 16 La. Ann. 217 (1861). In this appeal from Carroll Parish, Louisiana, the seller had held pre-emption rights on public land and in 1854 sold Spurlin "improvements" on other public land. Spurlin later sued to get back the price. The Louisiana Supreme Court accepted that such a sale was illegal but held that a buyer who had voluntarily paid could not recover the money, and it entered judgment for the seller.^[3]
• Stapp v. Spurlin, 32 Ind. 442 (1869). A commission agent for millers in Madison, Indiana, bought 1,691 bushels of wheat from Spurlin at $1.70 a bushel at the St. Louis switch on the Columbus and Shelbyville Railroad in Shelby County. The wheat was delivered in March 1865, but the agent paid only part of the price. The Indiana Supreme Court held the millers liable for the balance, even though they had already settled accounts with their agent.^[4]
• Andrews v. Spurlin, 35 Ind. 262 (1871). In an ejectment suit over land in Bartholomew County, the Indiana Supreme Court reaffirmed the rule in Shelley's case as Indiana law. It held that a deed to a woman "her lifetime" and then to "the heirs of her body" gave her full ownership, so she could sell it. A clause in the deed saying that a transfer by her "shall in no wise be valid" referred to her father's other real estate, the court said, and a grantor could not in any case absolutely forbid the sale of land conveyed. It reversed a judgment for the Spurlin plaintiffs, who claimed the land as her heirs, and ordered a new trial.^[5]
• Spurlin v. State ex rel. Vancleave, 20 Ind. App. 342 (1898). Indiana law then let a voter whose vote had been bought sue the buyer, in the State's name, for a $300 penalty. In an appeal from Shelby County, the Appellate Court of Indiana reversed a penalty judgment against Spurlin because the trial judge had refused to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence.^[6]

Torts and insurance

• Alaska Lumber Co. v. Spurlin, 183 Ark. 576 (1931). Spurlin was skidding logs with a mule team for a Clark County sawmill when his team bolted and a log broke his leg. He claimed a coworker's shouting at another team 30 to 50 yards away had startled his mules. The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed his $2,500 judgment and dismissed the case. It found no actionable negligence, because the coworker could not see him and could not have foreseen the injury. The opinion includes an aside on the nature of mules, repeating the saying that the mule is "without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity."^[7]
• Spurlin v. Colprovia Products Co., 185 S.C. 449 (1937). In a wrongful-death suit over a truck passenger's death, the Supreme Court of South Carolina addressed when an order refusing to make a complaint "more definite and certain" can be appealed. It affirmed the trial court, which had let the plaintiff proceed without first stating whether the passenger was a paying rider or a guest under the state's guest statute.^[8]
• Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Southeast Arkansas v. Spurlin, 199 Ark. 126 (1939). This was one of the era's glass-in-a-bottle cases. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed a $200 judgment for a man who swallowed glass from a Coca-Cola bought at a filling station in 1937. It held that the bottler's evidence about its cleaning methods raised a jury question.^[9]
• Spurlin v. Western Casualty & Surety Co., 65 Ga. App. 488 (1941). Spurlin was driving a military ambulance owned by Georgia's Military Department when it collided with a truck, and he was sued. He then sued the department's liability insurer. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of his suit. It held that an endorsement on the policy did not cancel its "additional assureds" clause for vehicles the department itself owned.^[10]
• Spurlin v. Nardo, 145 W. Va. 408 (1960). A guest passenger sued the driver after a brake-related car accident in Wheeling. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia set aside a $5,000 verdict and granted a new trial. It held that expert braking-test evidence had been admitted without instructions explaining how the test conditions differed from a sudden brake failure.^[11]
• Spurlin v. Richardson, 203 Va. 984 (1962). A mother sued a dairy after a tractor and hay baler rolled down a barnyard incline in 1959 and killed her seven-year-old son. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed judgment for the defendants and upheld the exclusion of a prior parking instruction given to a different employee.^[12]
• Spurlin v. Paul Brown Agency, Inc., 80 N.M. 306 (1969). The New Mexico Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of a suit against an insurance agency that allegedly failed to buy promised auto liability coverage, holding that the four-year limitations period had not run.^[13]
• Spurlin v. Merchants Insurance Co., 57 F.3d 9 (1st Cir. 1995). An injured passenger in a dealer's "loaner" car tried to collect on the dealership's garage policy. The First Circuit affirmed judgment for the insurer, reading the policy's exclusion for customers who carry their own insurance.^[14]

Workers' compensation and benefits

• Spurlin v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 956 F.2d 163 (7th Cir. 1992). Judge Richard Posner wrote for the Seventh Circuit. A railroad conductor spent most of each day moving empty coal cars past a mine's tipple, where he was exposed to coal dust, and parking them on the hill beyond it for loading. The Benefits Review Board had held he was not a "miner" under the Black Lung Benefits Act. The court reversed, reasoning that moving the empty cars was an essential step in preparing the coal for shipment.^[15]
• Spurlin v. Adkins, 940 S.W.2d 900 (Ky. 1997). Robert E. Spurlin appears in the caption as director of Kentucky's Special Fund. The Kentucky Supreme Court held that 1994 amendments to KRS 342.730(1), which barred counting non-work-related disability when fixing a worker's occupational disability, were substantive changes. They therefore did not apply to injuries that occurred before the amendments took effect. The same court decided two other Special Fund appeals under his name that year, Spurlin v. Woods (February 27, 1997) and Spurlin v. Brooks.^[16][17][18] These cases carry the Spurlin name only because of his office; the Woods caption reads "Robert E. Spurlin, Director of Special Fund, Successor to William O. Windchy."^[17] According to a Kentucky Public Service Commission biography, he served on that commission from 1972 to 1976, later directed the Labor Cabinet's Division of Special Fund, and returned to the commission in 2001.^[19] See Robert E. Spurlin (Kentucky utility regulator).

Property, contracts and estates

• Central State Bank v. Spurlin, 111 Iowa 187 (1900). Spurlin had signed a note in Marshalltown, Iowa, payable to "J. M. Fitzgerald, trustee." The Iowa Supreme Court held that the word "trustee" only described the payee and did not destroy the note's negotiability. The bank that bought it was a bona fide holder, so Spurlin's defenses of fraud and lack of consideration failed.^[20]
• Spurlin Mercantile Co. v. Lauchheimer & Sons, 159 Ala. 512 (1909). The Alabama Supreme Court reversed a default judgment against the Spurlin Mercantile Company. A default judgment against a corporation, it held, must show proof that the person served was an officer or agent authorized to accept service.^[21]
• Boutwell v. Spurlin Mercantile Co., 203 Ala. 482 (1919). The Alabama Supreme Court set out burdens of proof in a creditor's suit to reach land conveyed by deeds of gift. It held that the conveyances were constructively fraudulent as to a prior debt owed to the Spurlin Mercantile Company.^[22]
• Henry v. Spurlin, 277 Ky. 114 (1939). Kentucky's highest court upheld an agreed compromise judgment that settled a Madison County will contest, following the majority rule that heirs may validly agree to modify or set aside a will.^[23]
• Coffee County v. Spurlin, 245 Ala. 99 (1943). Coffee County, Alabama, condemned part of a landowner's frontage to improve a road. Shortages of machinery and materials during the Second World War stopped the work before the road was paved. The Alabama Supreme Court upheld a new trial on compensation. Because the parties could not yet show what the finished road would be worth to the owner, it ordered the case continued until peace or some other change made a fair trial possible.^[24]
• Spurlin v. Siebrasse, 74 S.D. 150 (1951). Spurlin was a custom combine operator who followed the grain harvest north through four states. He sued the South Dakota grain owners for his harvesting fee and to enforce a combiner's lien. The trial court dismissed the suit because he had not filed a workmen's compensation bond in the county. The South Dakota Supreme Court reversed, holding that a transient harvester had no residence in any South Dakota county and so had no duty to file.^[25]
• Greene County Tire and Supply, Inc. v. Spurlin, 207 Tenn. 189 (1960). Spurlin was one of three stockholders who sold a Greeneville tire-recapping business and promised not to compete within 100 miles for five years. The Tennessee Supreme Court enforced the covenant and affirmed an injunction against him.^[26]
• Spurlin v. Sloan, 368 S.W.2d 314 (Ky. 1963). A creditor, Spurlin, attached money the state highway department owed a road contractor. The contractor had already assigned that money to his partners. The Court of Appeals of Kentucky held that Kentucky's Uniform Commercial Code did not cover an outright assignment of money already earned, made to pay an existing debt, so the earlier assignment beat the attachment.^[27]
• Jacob v. Spurlin, 1999-NMCA-049. The New Mexico Court of Appeals held a video-store operator liable on a commercial lease and note, despite his assignment of the lease to a family corporation and his personal bankruptcy discharge, because he kept the benefit of the premises.^[28]
• Spurlin v. Spurlin, 289 Ga. 818 (2011). The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed a divorce decree that enforced a postnuptial reconciliation agreement. It held that the trial court could find full and fair financial disclosure from the wife's close knowledge of the husband's business and finances, and that the custody award rested on a separate best-interests analysis.^[29][30]

Government and public officials

• Spurlin v. State (ex rel. Graves), 51 Tex. Civ. App. 266 (1908). J. L. Spurlin and the other appellants were the officers chosen after the town of Hamilton, Texas, voted to incorporate in February 1907. In a quo warranto suit brought in the State's name, the trial court dissolved the town government, and the Texas Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. A town of fewer than 2,000 people could not incorporate more than two square miles, and Hamilton had taken in four.^[31] See Spurlins of Hamilton County, Texas.
• Board of Education v. Spurlin, 141 Colo. 508 (1960). E. T. Spurlin was named as Colorado's state controller in this civil-service case. See the full article.
• Spurlin v. School Board of Sarasota County, 520 So. 2d 294 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988). Warren L. Spurlin, a school-district administrator who had served as interim superintendent in 1985, challenged the school board's refusal to renew his contract as deputy superintendent. The court affirmed. It held that the "good cause" a school board needs to reject a superintendent's recommendation is not limited to the statutory grounds for suspending or dismissing an employee.^[32]
• Spurlin v. Scheiner, 531 So. 2d 988 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988), and Scheiner v. Spurlin, 555 So. 2d 403 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989). Fort Myers police chief Jere Spurlin was the named party in a suit seeking access to police accident reports. The court held that the reports are public records open to inspection under Florida's public-records law, except for parts made confidential by statute. In the second appeal it held that the names and addresses of the people involved and of witnesses are not confidential.^[33][34]
• Knight v. Spurlin, 226 S.W.3d 844 (Ky. Ct. App. 2007). The county judge/executive of Todd County, Kentucky, appealed a ruling in favor of the county fiscal court, whose members, including magistrate Brent Spurlin, were the appellees. The Kentucky Court of Appeals held that state law gives the judge/executive the power and duty to propose the county's administrative code, so the fiscal court could not write and adopt its own. It reversed.^[35]

Criminal law and procedure

• Spurlin v. State, 222 Ga. 179 (1966). In a Fulton County robbery appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court considered the 1958 constitutional amendment and 1962 act that allowed superior court judges emeritus to preside.^[36]
• Spurlin v. Department of Corrections ex rel. Nardini, 230 A.2d 276 (Del. 1967). The Delaware Supreme Court held that the Board of Parole, when it revoked the parole of a man who had left the state without permission, could also take away the "good time" he had earned before his release.^[37]
• Spurlin v. State, 218 So. 2d 876 (Miss. 1969). The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed a Lincoln County manslaughter conviction. After the defendant asked for a lawyer, a deputy asked where the pistol was, and he offered to take the officers to it. The court held that he had freely volunteered to produce the gun, which fell within a recognized exception to Miranda. It also held that the Weathersby rule, which can require a jury to accept a defendant's account, did not apply because the only eyewitnesses had not testified.^[38]
• Spurlin v. State, 228 Ga. 2 (1971). The court affirmed an armed-robbery conviction. It addressed Georgia's detainer statute and when evidence of other crimes is admissible.^[39]
• Spurlin v. State, 228 Ga. 763 (1972). In a related armed-robbery appeal from Jefferson County, the court held that the defendant had waived any objection to being tried in prison clothing by not raising it until the close of the State's evidence.^[40]
• See also People v. Spurlin (Cal. Ct. App. 1984) on heat-of-passion provocation and United States v. Spurlin (5th Cir. 2011) on bankruptcy crimes.

Patent appeals

Hercules Powder Company chemist Harold M. Spurlin was a co-applicant in two appeals to the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals: In re Lohr (1963), on the obviousness of thiophosphate pesticide compounds, and In re Lukach (1971), on written-description support for copolymer claims. The Patent Office's rejections were affirmed in both.^[41][42] See Spurlin patents.

Not covered here

CourtListener's list also includes certiorari denials, brief orders affirming without opinion, federal trial-court rulings and recent criminal appeals. This guide leaves them out unless they add a legal point.^[1] Cases under the related surname Spurling are also left out. The best known is the English Court of Appeal decision J Spurling Ltd v Bradshaw (1956), remembered for Lord Denning's "red hand rule" on exclusion clauses; see J Spurling Ltd v Bradshaw.^[43]