Goad v. Montgomery’s Empirical Analysis
1898
Citation profile
100 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 102 later decisions — most recently July 1995 · most notably Bacon v. Bacon (1907), 29 Cal. 2d 423 - Loring v. Town of Kingsley (1946)
100 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Estate of Hinckley · William Hill Co. v. Lawler · In re the Estate of Garraud · Goldtree v. Thompson · Daly v. Pennie
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 102 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Although the persons named in the will as its executors are the same as those to whom the testator directed the property to be distributed in trust for his children, yet the power of sale conferred upon the executors was not given by him to them as trustees, but terminated with their discharge as executors. The fact that the two offices are held successively by the same individuals does not give to them in the exercise of one office the power that had been conferred for the exercise of the other. Their rights and duties as executors were quite distinct from the duties imposed upon them as trustees, and their powers and duties as trustees did not begin until, as executors, they had ceased to have any control over the property; and, as above seen, the decree of distribution is alone to be considered for the purpose of ascertaining their powers. The testator may have been willing to give this power of sale to his executors, since he knew that every sale by them must be confirmed by the court before the title to the land would pass from his estate, while he might have been unwilling to vest the same persons with a power whose exercise would be without such supervision and control.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“The court may incorporate the provisions of the will in its decree, either in express terms or by reference thereto as was the case in Goldtree v. Thompson, 79 Cal. 613 [ 22 P. 50 ], where the decree distributed the property to the trustees to hold in the manner named and set forth in the will, 'and to which reference is hereby particularly made as a guide to the trustees in the discharge of their trust.' In such a case, the terms of the will become the language of the decree, but it is still the decree, and not the will by which the rights of the parties are determined.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“If the plaintiffs herein had felt that the Decree of Distribution was erroneous or defective, in not giving to them the powers which, in their opinion, the terms of the will authorized to be conferred upon them, they could have appealed therefrom and had the Decree corrected, but by their failure to appeal, the Decree has become conclusive upon them and they can no longer contend for a different construction than such as its terms import.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Estate of Bodger
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.