Oursler v. Armstrong’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 7 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Grace may have had a moral obligation to give the property which she inherited from Fulton to all four of the children, but a moral obligation alone is not enough to set the court in motion in a case of this kind [citation omitted]. The only basis on which a court can intervene is that a promise was made by Mrs. Grace Oursler not to alter or revoke her 1951 will and that by reason of her promise to that effect her husband gave and bequeathed to her what he did. The power to dispose of one's property by will is not lightly to be denied even if Judges think that the testatrix should have disposed of her estate differently. No express promise or representation was proved in writing or orally to have been made by Grace Oursler that she would not change her testamentary intent as expressed in the will which she executed contemporaneously with the will of her husband. Nor does the evidence from which such a promise is sought to be implied establish anything more than a 1951 intention on Mrs. Oursler's part to dispose of her property as she provided by her 1951 will.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Matter of Estate of Moore

2. “Nothing in the memorandum which Grace Oursler submitted to their attorney, Mr. Ernst, amounts to a promise that she would refrain from later exercising her prerogative of revoking or altering her 1951 will to which it relates. This memorandum has no more probative force than the will itself, the substance of portions of which it incorporates. The mere inclusion of statements that her 1951 will is "as he would wish it", or that "Should he not survive me then I would wish my estate handled as he would wish matters to be handled, except that anything of my own would go directly to my own children and grandchildren, knowing that my husband's loved ones have been, are and will be well remembered", do not alter the situation. She was stating her present wish with regard to the contents of her 1951 will. The mere circumstance that she executed this will contemporaneously with the will of her husband, and that both contained similar provisions with respect to the gift over to Fulton Oursler's children in 1951, does not constitute an agreement....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Matter of Estate of Moore

3. “Thus a constructive trust for the testamentary disposition of assets received from another is equated with a quasi contract implied in law, contrary to actual fact, as ... described in Miller v. Schloss.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re: First Central Financial Corporation