Foster v. Brady’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 state decisions

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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"* * * Nevertheless certain facts and circumstances bearing upon the execution of a will may be of such nature and force as to raise a suspicion, varying in its strength, against the validity of the testamentary instrument. The most important of such facts are: (1) That the beneficiary occupied a fiduciary or confidential relation to the testator; (2) that the beneficiary actively participated in the preparation or procurement of the will; and (3) that the beneficiary received an unusually or unnaturally large part of the estate. Added to these may be other considerations such as the age or condition of health and mental vigor of the testator, the nature or degree of relationship between the testator and the beneficiary, the opportunity for exerting an undue influence, and the naturalness or unnaturalness of the will."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Westfall's Estate · First Nat. Bank v. Proctor

2. “In the case at bar, we find all the elements suggested in the foregoing quotation — the testator of great age and very ill, suffering from a mortal disease; the beneficiary occupying the relation not only of physician but of custodian, and actively participating in the procurement of the will, receiving thereunder an unnaturally large proportion of the estate, to the practical exclusion of the testator's nearest living blood relative, for whom he had always manifested affection, and whom he had remembered much more substantially in a prior will.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 78 Wash. 2d 623 - Estill v. Sisters of Charity