Sappington v. Sappington School Fund Trustees’s Empirical Analysis
1894
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently September 1972
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 15 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 Chambers v. City of St. Louis · First Baptist Church v. Robberson · Schmidt v. Hess · Howe v. Wilson · Academy of the Visitation v. Clemens
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““No doubt the gift mentioned is. valid, the rule being that, in gifts to a charitable use, mere obscurity or indefiniteness will not necessarily defeat the trust; for courts of chancery will uphold and administer gifts where they are made to charity generally, if there is' a trustee with power to make them definite and certain. ‘Courts look with favor upon all such donations, and endeavor to carry them into effect, if it can be done consistently with the rules of law. If the words of a gift are ambiguous or contradictory, they are so construed as to support the charity, if possible. It is an established maxim of interpretation .that the court is bound to carry the gift into effect, if it can see a general charitable intention consistent with the rules of law, even if the particular manner indicated by the donor is illegal or impracticable; or, as Lord Hardwicke said, “The bequest is not void, and there is no authority to construe it to be void, if by law it can possibly be made good;” or, in other words, “there is no authority to construe it to be void by law if it can possibly be made good.” ’ * * * “Here there is a trustee with power to make the gift definite and certain, and power in a court of equity to see that the trustee does not commit a breach of his trust, and to compel its observance by him.” 7”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Irwin v. Swinney
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.