Kello v. Kello's Executors’s Empirical Analysis
1920
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently April 1999
2 federal appellate · 5 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 Tillman v. . Davis · Wootton v. Redd's ex'or · Hooe v. Hooe · Howard v. Munford
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.
“Again, it may be asked why the testator did not use the words 'my then living next of kin,' or 'my nearest surviving relations,' instead of the words actually used, if he intended that his estate should pass to the nearest of his blood living at his death? 'Heirs' is a highly technical word, while 'kin' is not. The word 'heirs' has been defined in Virginia as the 'next of kin' who take under the statute of descents. The nearest in blood according to nature do not always share in the inheritance under the statute of descents.... ** In the instant case, the testator left his estate to all of his 'then living nearest heirs,' that is, it may be fairly said, to his next of kin who would take according to the statute, or to that group of kin who for the purposes of inheritance are his nearest heirs in the contemplation of the statute.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The appellant, in the instant case, insists that the words 'nearest heirs' mean the nearest in blood to the testator living at the time of his death, and that, as he alone falls within that description, he is entitled to the entire residuum. If the words 'nearest heirs' were synonymous with the words 'nearest of kin,' the contention would be irresistible. As it is, it is a persuasive one. But there is other language in the will indicating that the testator, when he used the words 'nearest heirs,' did not contemplate that his estate should pass to a single brother under that designation, but rather that he had in mind a group of takers....”
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.