Doty v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 1 district · 3 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “But even if we assume arguendo that the testatrix intended to give the trustee an absolute discretion in the allocation of trust receipts to corpus or to income, that discretion is not completely uncurbed. It must be exercised reasonably and in good faith in the interest of beneficiaries and remaindermen and must not be abused or exercised arbitrarily. Mayherry v. Carey, 268 Mass. 255 , 167 N. E. 281 ; Dumaine v. Dumaine, supra; Sears v. Childs, 309 Mass. 337 , 35 N. E. 2d 663 . The action of the trustee here in classifying ordinary dividends as corpus deprives the beneficiary of all income from the trust. In the absence of most unusual circumstances — and none appear here — it seems clear that on the facts of this case equity would find such action on the part of the trustee arbitrary and an abuse of discretion.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brown v. Commissioner