Garner v. . Phillips’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In taking the view that a person who feloniously kills his ancestor is not entitled to intestate succession in the estate of his victim, most courts have cited maxims of the common law which in effect declare that no person should be permitted to take advantage of his own wrong. Such courts reason that such maxims constitute a rule of public policy which the legislature in the enactment of statutes of descent and distribution had no intention of abrogating, and that the interpretation of the law as precluding a person who feloniously kills his ancestor from succeeding to his victim’s estate is but an expression of the legislative intent rather than an abrogation of the statutes by judicial construction. To the contention that to preclude the inheritance is to constitute forfeiture of estate, attainder, or corruption of the blood, in violation of constitutional prohibitions, the courts have answered that, as there is no vesting of the estate in the murderer because of his crime, there is no forfeiture, and since the murderer never becomes a distributee there is no corruption of the blood. j{c ‡ 99”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 68 N.C. App. 582 - Jones v. All American Life Insurance · Reagan v. Brown

2. “It is a basic principle of law and equity that no man shall be permitted to take advantage of his own wrong, or acquire property as the result of his own crime. (Citations.) True, we have no statute in North Carolina which in express terms destroys the right of inheritance under the canons of descent, or bars the devolution of title as heir to one who has murdered the ancestor from whom derived, but the rule seems to have been established in this jurisdiction that in such case equity will impress upon the legal title so acquired a constructive trust in favor of those next entitled and will exclude the murderer from all beneficial interest in the lands descending to him from his victim. . . .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 26 N.C. App. 203 - Lofton v. Lofton