Sullivan v. Sullivan’s Empirical Analysis
1943
Citation profile
2 district · 26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2018 · most notably Conkright v. Frommert (2010), First National Bank v. Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (1979)
2 district · 26 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 Eaton v. Eaton · Eaton v. Eaton · Bucknam v. Bucknam · Roats v. Roats · Kirk v. Vohland
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The settlor may, however, manifest an intention that the trustee’s judgment need not be exercised reasonably .... [Words which purport to give trustees unlimited discretion] are not interpreted literally but are ordinarily construed as merely dispensing with the standard of reasonableness____Thus, the trustee will not be permitted to act dishonestly, or from some motive other than the accomplishment of the purposes of the trust, or ordinarily to act arbitrarily without an exercise of his judgment.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Smith v. Smith“[The trastees] shall apply the proceeds' or income therefrom for the proper use, support and maintenance of said son ... from time to time as in their judgment may be required or necessary therefor, they being the sole judges of such necessity without applying to the courts [and] shall have full and uncontrolled discretion as to the application of said income and trust estate.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.