115 Cal. App. 646 - Meyer v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
1931
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently September 1998 · most notably 38 Cal. 2d 643 - Beck v. West Coast Life Insurance (1952), West Coast Life Insurance v. Crawford (1943)
8 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on New York Mutual Life Insurance v. Armstrong · Mutual Life Ins Co of New York v. Armstrong · Supreme Lodge Knights & Ladies of Honor v. Menkhausen · Anderson v. Life Insurance Co. of Virginia · Sharpless v. Grand Lodge of Ancient Order of United Workmen
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the rule were that the personal representatives of murderously inclined beneficiaries might take money made bloody by the slaying of those inclined to generosity, how many individuals who now walk the streets might ride in Rolls-Royces or emulate the eagle in his dizzy flight? By such a rule many a beneficiary, aged or infirm, and contemplating a young and healthful assured, would be tempted to commit a crime which would enrich his heirs, although it were too late to enrich himself. Indeed, many a man has committed atrocious crimes for the benefit of his children.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“If the beneficiary murders the member, and so loses his rights as such * * * the fund may be recovered by such other persons (clearly the heirs of the insured) as would take had no beneficiary been designated.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.