Fleishman v. Bregel’s Empirical Analysis
1938
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently May 2002
10 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 Heald v. Heald · Brizendine v. American Trust & Savings Bank · Coe v. Hill · Devecmon v. Shaw · Gellar v. Gellar
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[T]he conditions of that item relating to appellant’s marital status, both in regard to no longer living with his wife and with reference to securing a divorce from her, are void as against public policy, and ... the bequest is consequently unaffected by such conditions. These conclusions concerning those conditions are in no way affected by the expression used by testatrix in the second paragraph of that item requiring their performance by the time of her decease, for since during the twenty-three days which elapsed between the date of executing the will and death of testatrix there existed no cause entitling appellant to a divorce from his wife, it must be assumed that he could not have procured one. That requirement must, therefore, be regarded as impossible of fulfillment.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““But under the conditions of that item, he must divorce his wife or in any event cease to live with her in order to have the corpus. He is thus afforded a financial reward for securing a divorce or ceasing to live with his wife. Since he has no valid reason for not living with her, he can secure a divorce only through fraud or collusion, and in either case the conditions which induce him to take such action for reward are against public policy. To enforce them by compliance would tend to disrupt appellant’s family relations, and it is inconceivable that a more improper motive for terminating such relations could be held out to him than by the provisions in question.””
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.