Gardner v. Anderson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

22 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There is a very potent reason why the court can give no countenance to a loose interpretation of the words ‘heirs in fee’ as meaning ‘issue,’ or suffer them to be used synonymously and interchangeably. Our rules of statutory construction provide: “ ‘Second. Words and phrases shall be construed according to the context and the approved usage of the language; but technical words and phrases, and such others as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law shall be construed according to such peculiar and appropriate meaning.’ (R. S. 77-201.) “It cannot be denied that the words ‘heirs in fee’ and ‘issue’ have long possessed a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law, and their respective meaning and the clear distinction between them must neither be slighted nor confused. Moreover, the statute itself defines the word ‘issue.’ “ ‘Seventh. The word “issue,” as applied to the descent of estates, includes all the lawful lineal descendants of the ancestor.’ (R. S. 77-201.) “On the other hand, an ‘heir’ or ‘heir at law’ is simply the person designated by the statute who succeeds to the estate of a deceased person, and the statute may make anybody an heir. An ‘heir in fee’ is merely the person on whom the fee title devolves by the statutory rule of inheritable succession. “Blackstone says: “ We are to reflect, in the first place, that all rules of succession to estates are creatures of the civil polity, and juris positivi merely . . . There is cer- tainly, therefore, no i”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jackson v. Lee

2. ““When lands, tenements or hereditaments are given by will to any person for his life, and after his death to his heirs in fee, or by words to that effect, the conveyance shall be construed to vest an estate for life only in such part taken, and a remainder in fee simple in his heirs.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Farmers State Bank v. HowLett ex rel. Nagle

3. ““An. estate tail or fee tail is a freehold estate in which there is a fixed line of inheritable succession limited to the issue of the body of the grantee or devisee, and in which the regular and general succession of statutory heirs at law is cut off.” (Syl. ¶ 3.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Farmers State Bank v. HowLett ex rel. Nagle