Bierer v. Bierer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is argued on behalf of appellant that the fifth paragraph of the will should be disregarded, for the reason that under the third paragraph of the will, upon the death or remarriage of testator’s widow, the estate is to be divided among the children of the testator share and share alike, and that the testator, having, by this provision of the will, given Daniel Bierer a share of the estate equal to his other children, it was not within the power of the testator to make limitations upon that by a later provision of the will. This argument overlooks the fact that by the third provision of the will the property, upon the death of the testator’s widow, ‘with the exceptions hereinafter provided,’ is to descend to his children share and share alike. Appellant contends that the exceptions referred to pertain only to those set out in the third paragraph of the will, but this contention cannot be sustained. The provisions of the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the will should be considered exceptions to the same extent as though separate paragraphs concerning them had not been made, but all of them had been placed in the third paragraph of the will. A testator is not required to write all the provisions of his will in one sentence, or in one paragraph (Bullock v. Wiltberger, 92 Kan. 900 , 142 Pac. 950 ; Morse v. Henlon, 97 Kan. 399 , 155 Pac. 800 ), and the will should be construed as a whole for the purpose of determining the intention of the testator.” (p. 59.)”

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