Lytle v. Zebold’s Empirical Analysis
1962
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Harrison v. Springdale Water & Sewer Commission (1986), Seymour v. Biehslich (2007)
2 federal appellate · 20 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 Bernstein v. Bramble · Ellsworth v. Arkansas Natl. Bk., Trustee · Lytle v. Zebold
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.
“This contention is unsound. It was not until this court had announced its decision in the first proceeding [Lytle /] that it became definitely known that the [beneficiaries] had made an unsuccessful rather than a successful attack upon the will. Before the final judgment the issue was in doubt. Hence when the executor filed his answer he was not in a position to assert that the [beneficiaries] had violated the prohibition against a will contest. By analogy ... one who is wrongfully and maliciously made a defendant in a civil proceeding does not have to assert a claim for malicious prosecution in that very suit. It is not until the first case has been carried to its conclusion that the cause of action for malicious prosecution can be shown with certainty.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[T]he dissatisfied beneficiaries contended that the testamentary trust was invalid and that the property should be distributed as if the testator had died intestate. Our opinion [in Lytle J] discussed and rejected three separate attacks upon the validity of the testamentary scheme. We cannot avoid the conclusion that the first petition was the very type of proceeding that the testator intended to forbid.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Seymour v. Biehslich“Since the testator may leave his properly to anyone he chooses he is at liberty to exclude from his bounty those beneficiaries who unsuccessfully seek to thwart his testamentary wishes.”
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.