Ellis v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

94 federal appellate · 26 district · 26 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 266 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In a state, of which New York is an example, where, by its law, its own courts of general civil jurisdiction are authorized thus incidentally and collaterally to try and determine the question of the validity of a will and its probate in a suit involving the title to real property, there can be no question but that the circuit courts of the United States might have jurisdiction of such a suit by reason of the citizenship of the parties, and in exercising it would be authorized and required to determine, as a court administering the law of that state, the same questions. And where provision is made by the laws of a state, as is the case in many, for trying the question of the validity of a will already admitted to probate, by a litigation between parties in which that is the sole question, with the effect, if the judgment shall be in the negative, of rendering the probate void for all purposes as between the parties and those in privity with them, it may be that the courts of the United States have jurisdiction, under existing provisions of law, to administer the remedy and establish the right in a case where the controversy is wholly between citizens of different states. The judicial power of the United States extends, by the terms of the constitution, ‘to controversies between citizens of different statesand on the supposition, which is not admitted, that this embraces only such as arise in cases ‘in law and equity,’ it does not necessarily exclude those which may involve t”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Farrell v. O'Brien · Copeland v. Bruning

2. ““Circuit courts, as courts of equity, have no general jurisdiction for annulling or affirming the probate of a will. Jurisdiction as to wills, or their probate as such, is neither included in nor excepted out of the grant of judicial power to the courts of the United States. So far as it is ex parte, and merely administrative, it is not conferred; and it cannot be exercised by them at all, until in a case at law or in equity its exercise becomes necessary to settle a controversy of which a court of the United States may take cognizance by reason of the citizenship of the parties.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Williams v. Crabb · Wart v. Wart

3. “by the law obtaining in the state, customary or statutory,”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Farrell v. O'Brien · Galion Iron Works & Manufacturing Co. v. Russell