Weidner v. Crowther’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 73 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 83 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"One party to a mutual will may not render it unenforceable after the death of the other party by declaring a revocation thereof and declining to take benefits under it. Death of one of the parties to a mutual will, or mutual wills, will put effective revocation thereof beyond the legal right and power of the survivor. As long ago as 1769 Lord Chancellor Camden announced the foregoing rule, by way of dictum, in Dufour v. Pereira, 1 Dickens 419. In that case the surviving widow probated a mutual will as the will of her deceased husband and took benefits under it. The question was whether it was in the power of the survivor to revoke the mutual will. On the power of revocation Lord Camden said: "But I cannot be of the opinion that either of them could, during their joint lives, do it secretly; or that, after the death of either, it could be done by the survivor by another will"'. * * * "At the heart of a mutual will lies a contract of the parties. It would be manifestly unjust to permit the surviving party to the contract to disavow it and its obligations, as those obligations are incorporated in their will, after the other party has fully performed by abiding by it until his ability to revise it has been terminated by death. * * * * * * " We recognize that a will is ambulatory in character and that the surviving party to a mutual will may revoke it, but effective revocation will be prevented by a court of equity. In Murphy v. Slaton, 154 Tex. 35 , 273 S.W.2d 588, 593 , in deal”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Turner v. Merchants & Planters National Bank of Sherman · Kirk v. Beard

2. ““* * * When the will is thus interpreted the contract between the parties, incorporated in and evidenced by the will, appears clearly to have been that if the first to die would devise to the survivor the fee simple title to all property, separate and community, owned at death, the survivor would devise in fee simple to the three children equally all property, separate and community, owned at death. In carry ing that contract into effect each of the parties expressed in the will in ‘plain, specific and unambiguous language’ the intention that all property, separate and community, owned by the survivor at death, which necessarily included after-acquired property, should be inherited by the three children in equal shares. * * *””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kirk v. Beard