Eldred v. Meek’s Empirical Analysis
1899
Citation profile
27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently April 1924 · most notably Johnson v. Preston (1907), Anderson v. Menefee (1915)
27 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 Tilden v. . Green · In re Estate of Walkerly · Scofield v. Olcott · Knight v. Pottgieser · Howe v. Hodge
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A gift to a person if or when he shall attain a certain age will not vest until that age is attained. Scofield v. Olcott, 120 Ill. 362 ; 2 Jarman on Wills (R. & T.’s ed.) 458; Theobald on Wills, 412; In re Bennett’s Trusts, 3 K. & J. 280; Johnson’s Estate, 185 Pa. St. 179. There is a distinction between a gift or a legacy to a person to be paid to him at a future time; and a direction to pay or transfer the legacy to him at a future time. In the former case the legacy is considered as vesting in him immediately, but where the gift is merely by a direction to pay to him at a future time the legacy does not vest forthwith. Until the time arrives he has no vested interest in the bequest. Scofield v. Olcott, supra; Jones v. MacMilwain, 1 Russ. 223; Kingman v. Harmon, 131 Ill. 171 ; Illinois Land and Loan Co. v. Bonner, 75 id. 315 . Thus, a direction to trustees to pay (transfer, deed, etc.) to certain devisees ‘when they should arrive at twenty-five years of age,’ or ‘upon their becoming twenty-five years of age, ’ has been held to convey a contingent interest only.””
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.