McKenzie v. Francis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “And reading on [from McKenzie] “Since total obliteration could have been achieved as readily as partial obliteration, partial obliteration is ‘evidence to the contrary’.” Now in that case it turned on the question of accident, in this case there is no question but what the act can be presumed to be intentional having been in the possession of the testatrix. The only question is whether it is sufficient to indicate an intent to revoke the entire instrument and, as the court said, examining the instrument itself can furnish the evidence of a contrary intent, that which is the rebuttal required of the proponents. My ruling is that the motion to strike should be denied on that ground, that the instrument itself reveals circumstances which are sufficient to be considered rebuttal testimony or rebuttal evidence, not testimony within the meaning of the McKenzie case and the statute. And the fact that the signature was intact and that a number of pages were intact indicates partial revocation and if further revocation is to be decided or declared, it would have to be upon the evidence offered by the contestants, which, of course they have the right to do. As the court goes on to say on page 107, “with the presumption neutralized, the burden of proving revocation falls on the contestants.” And that’s where we find the evidence on this issue right now. On the revocation I rule that the presumption has been neutralized and the burden shifts to the contestants to show any revocation whic”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jessup v. Jessup