Smith v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
1917
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently January 1984
5 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 Graves v. Wheeler · Sharp v. Hall · Daniel v. Hill · Dunn v. Bank of Mobile · Abney v. Moore
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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““When a written instrument conveying real property may on its face operate either as a deed or as a will, it must be determined whether it is so executed as to operate as either; and then the controlling inquiry is, which operation and effect the maker intended it to have. That is to say, whether the maker intended to pass a present interest or estate to the grantee, or an estate to vest on the death of the maker or grantor. This intention is to be ascertained not only from the instrument itself, but from the facts and circumstances attending its ex ecution. — Abney v. Moore, Adm’r, 106 Ala. 131 , 18 South. 60 ; Elmore v. Mustin, 28 Ala. 309 ; Daniel v. Hill, 52 Ala. 430 ; Hall v. Burkham, 59 Ala. 349 ; Sharp v. Hall, 86 Ala. 110 , 5 South. 497 , 11 Am.St.Rep. 28 ; Dunn v. Bank, 2 Ala. 152 .””
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.