Boyd v. Belin’s Empirical Analysis
1956
Citation profile
13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently December 1984
13 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 Russell v. Jones
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The terms of a contract of this kind must be clear, definite, certain, and complete. [Citations omitted]. We can not say the chancellor was manifestly wrong in finding that there was no contract. It is difficult to see how he could have found otherwise. For this Court to hold that under this proof the chancellor should have found the existence of a contract (assuming, but not deciding, that it was enforceable) would be to place the devolution of property upon a shaky foundation, encourage litigation in estates, and put a premium on flimsy claims to estates of the dead.”
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.