Councill v. Mayhew’s Empirical Analysis
1911
Citation profile
90 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 92 later decisions — most recently July 2002 · most notably Wear v. Wear (1916), Lewis v. Martin (1923)
90 state decisions
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 Acklen's v. Hickman · Coghill v. Kennedy · Bancroft v. Otis · Burney v. Torrey · Blakey's Heirs v. Blakey's
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 92 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"It is well settled that, on the issue as to testamentary capacity, a witness, whether expert or not, cannot testify that the testator was or was not capable of making a will, because, as it is said, this is the very issue to be submitted to the jury. * * *"”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"An unequal disposition of property per se raises no presumption . . . of testamentary incapacity, nor is it per se unnatural; but the unequal treatment of those who ostensibly have equal claims upon the testator's bounty, or the preference of one to the exclusion of another, may under the circumstances of a particular case, be deemed unnatural. In such a case, an unnatural disposition is a fact to be ascertained and considered by the jury [on the issue of testamentary capacity]."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“It was her duty in that capacity to write for him whatever he dictated; and in thus merely responding to his commands, it cannot be plausibly urged that she was active in procuring the execution of the will.”
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.