Ingraham v. Ingraham’s Empirical Analysis
1897
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 72 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Powers v. First Natl. Bank of Corsicana (1942), Richards v. Wilson (1916)
1 federal appellate · 70 state decisions — followed in 12 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 Colton v. Colton · Russell v. Allen · Scofield v. Olcott · Crerar v. Williams · Woman's Union Missionary Society of America v. Mead
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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Here the fund goes at once and directly to the trustees, for the benefit of the hospital; and no intermediate estate is created, to be enjoyed by any donee or devisee, between the testator's death and the application of the fund to charity. There is no gift prior to the gift to the hospital, and no first taker having precedence over the hospital. The enjoyment or application of the fund is not postponed to await the expiration of any antecedent estate. Charity takes the fund immediately, and awaits only the period of accumulation before it may enjoy that which is presently given.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The immediate and unconditional devotion of a fund to charity, and not the time or manner of its application or administration, is the test of the validity of its creation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“a present and immediate estate, or does it depend for its existence upon the occurrence of some future event, which may not happen within a life or lives in being, * * *.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.