McElroy v. Masterson’s Empirical Analysis
156 F. 36 · 1907
Citation profile
3 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently January 1944
3 federal appellate ·
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 Roberson v. . Rochester Folding Box Co. · Mackall v. Mackall · Towson v. Moore · Conley v. Nailor · Ralston v. Turpin
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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The bill of complaint should be dismissed, unless it can be maintained that there is a comprehensive discretion reposed by modern equity jurisprudence in the chancellor to make and unmake contracts of parties, sui juris, constrained only by no other limitations than those which meet the approval of his conscience. Courts of equity are now as much required as courts of law to enforce contracts free from vitiating elements of fraud, and to refrain from making contracts for the parties on which their minds never met. In the formative period of equity jurisprudence, the English Chancellors, in the absence of established principles and recognized sensible precedents, were much given to the pursuit of their own sense of absolute right and the dictates of their own individual conscience. But in the process of development equity jurisdiction has assumed more the qualities of a composite system of settled rules and principles, by which the property rights of parties are measured and limited, and are rendered more certain and stable.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““It would be a great reproach to the law if, in its jealous watchfulness over the freedom of testamentary disposition, it should deprive age and infirmity of the kindly ministrations of affection, or of the power of rewarding those who hestow them.” Sawyer v. White, 122 Fed. 223 , 225, 58 C. C. A. 587 , 589; McElroy v. Masterson, 156 Fed. 36 , 40, 41, 84 C. C. A. 202 , 206, 207; Alcorn v. Alcorn (C. C.) 194 Fed. 275 , 280; Meyer v. Jacobs (C. C.) 128 Fed. 900 , 912.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Ludwig v. Bressler
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.