Fuller v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1928
Citation profile
13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently December 1963
13 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 Medill v. Snyder · Wisner v. Chandler · Smith v. Young · Nordman v. Johnson · Higbee v. Bloom
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““One who attests and subscribes a will as a witness should do so with the understanding that he is competent to testify on the probate of the will that the testator had mental capacity to make a will and was not under restraint or undue influence. (Lawrie v. Lawrie, 39 Kan. 480 , 18 Pac. 499 ; Hospital Co. v. Hale, 69 Kan. 616, 619 , 77 Pac. 537 ; McConnell v. Keir, 76 Kan. 527, 531 , 92 Pac. 540 .) The attesting witnesses to a will must not only witness the signing or publishing of it by the testator, but it is also their duty to satisfy themselves that the testator is of sound and disposing mind and memory and capable of executing a will. (Smith et al. v. Young et al., 134 Miss. 738 ; In re Swan's Estate, 51 Utah, 410 .) ‘A witness to a will must . . . satisfy himself ... of his (the testator’s) testamentary capacity.’ (40 Cyc. 1110; Dunkeson v. Williams, 242 S. W. 653 [Mo.]; Schouler on Wills, 6th ed., §§ 229, 514; Page on Wills, 2d ed., § 332; and see cases collected in annotation 35 A. L. R. 79.) This duty necessarily requires that the attesting witnesses to a will should know and understand that the instrument they are signing as witnesses is a will, and they should do so prepared to testify to the testamentary capacity of the testator, and that he is free from restraint and undue influence. “We are aware there is a line of authorities to the effect that a witness to a will need not know whether he is witnessing a will or some other instrument, but we do not regard such”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.