Sears v. Choate’s Empirical Analysis
1888
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 97 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 105 later decisions — most recently August 2003 · most notably Shelton v. King (1913), Claflin v. Claflin (1889)
4 federal appellate · 97 state decisions — followed in 24 states
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 Broadway National Bank v. Adams · Sears v. Hardy · Sparhawk v. Cloon · Inches v. Hill · Underwood v. Boston Five Cents Savings Bank
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 105 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““There is no doubt of the power and duty of the court to decree the termination of a trust, where all its objects and purposes have been accomplished, where the interests under it have all vested,’ and where all parties beneficially interested desire its termination. Where property is given to certain persons for their benefit, and in such a manner that no other person has or can have any interest in it, they are in effect the absolute owners of it, and it is reasonable and just that they should have the control and disposal of it unless some good cause appears to the contrary.””
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.