Gilbert v. Gilbert’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

31 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Undue influence, legally speaking, must be such as in some measure destroys the free agency of the testator. It must he sufficient to prevent the exercise of that discretion which the law requires in relation to every testamentary disposition.1 It is not enough that the testator is persuaded by solicitation or argument from disposing of his property as he previously intended; he may yield to the persuasion of affection or attachment, and allow that sway to be exercised over his mind; and in neither of these eases would the law regard the influence as undue. To amount'to this, it must be equivalent to moral coercion; it must constrain its subject to do what is against his will, but which from fear, the desire of peace, or some'other feeling, he was unable to resist and, when this is so, the act which is the result of that influence is vitiated. Gilbert v. Gilbert, 22 Ala. 529 [ 58 Am. Dec. 268 ], * * * To avoid a will on the ground of undue influence, it must appear that the influence was exercised upon the very act of making the will. The fact that the testator was under the general and even the controlling influence of another person in the conduct of his affairs will not suffice to invalidate the will, unless that influence was specially exerted upon the testamentary act.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stolle v. Kanetzky