Clark v. Whaley’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 2010
6 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 Cannon v. . Cannon · Chapman v. Chapman · Bessie R. Griffin v. Central Natl. Bk.
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Id. at 96. More recently, we said: Our purpose of course is to find the testamentary intent. If a will reflects a clear intent that the determination of beneficiaries be postponed until a life tenant's death, rather than the testator's death, we honor that intent. See Griffin v. Central Nat'l Bank, 194 Va. 485 , 74 S.E.2d 188 (1953). But if a will is ambiguous in this regard, we invoke the aid of the canon of construction known as the early vesting rule. Under that rule,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lane v. Starke“devises and bequests are to be construed as vesting at the testator's death, unless the intention to postpone the vesting is clearly indicated in the will”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lane v. Starke
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.