Clayton v. Stein’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. ““In the case of Smith v. Baltimore Trust Co., 133 Md. 404 , this Court affirmed a decree construing the will of lames E. Clayton and holding that as to the one-sixth of his estate involved in the proceedings he died intestate. As a result of the intestacy thus adjudicated the affected portion of the testator’s estate was decreed to be vested in his sister, Nannie Clayton, as his only heir at law. According to the theory of construction which failed of acceptance, the estate in question would have passed to the children of two deceased aunts of the testator. The petition for the construction of the will was filed by the trustees to whom the estate had been devised under limitations which had terminated at the time of the institution of the proceedings. Of the parties whose interests were adverse to the theory of intestacy, one adult defendant by his answer merely stated his desire for such a decree as the court might deem proper, and the guardian ad litem of the only infant defendant submitted her rights to the court’s protection, while all the other parties having the interest just referred to asserted it in their answers. Only one of the defendants, however, appealed from the decree. After it had been affirmed the appellant’s solicitors applied for and obtained an order of the court below directing the auditor to allow them out of the fund for distribution a fee of $500 for their services in that court, and on appeal, subject to the usual right of exception. To this allowanc”

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