Kessner v. Phillips’s Empirical Analysis
1905
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently November 1991 · most notably Triplett v. Triplett (1933), Estes v. Estes (1924)
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 29 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Nichols Assignee v. Eaton et al. · Broadway National Bank v. Adams · Mandlebaum v. McDonell · Macke v. Byrd · Murray v. Green
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In order to create a spendthrift trust certain prerequisites must be observed, to wit: first, the gift to the donee must be only of the income. He must take no estate whatever, have nothing to alienate, have no right to possession, have no beneficial interest in the land, but only a qualified right to support, and an equitable interest only in the income; second, the legal title must be vested in a trustee; third, the trust must be an active one.” Kessner v. Phillips, 189 Mo. 515 ( 88 S. W. 66 , 107 Am; St. Rep. 368, 3 Ann. Cas. 1005).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The better rule and the better reason is that such limitations or conditions cannot be grafted upon a fee simple estate, because they are repugnant to the absolute ownership incident to the fee. Donors who have such limited confidence in their donees should create spendthrift trusts, and not, as here, attempt to evade and violate fundamental and wise provisions of law in reference to mere legal estates.””
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.