Cooper v. Simmons’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently August 2001
4 federal appellate · 15 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 Cross v. O'Cavanagh · Palmer v. Crews · Rice v. McMullen · National Bank of Greece v. Savarika · Low v. First Nat. Bank & Trust Co.
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The primary gift may lapse or fail if its object dies before the will can operate at all, but such lapse or failure has no tendency to defeat an independent and ulterior limitation to other objects who are living at the testat[rix]'s death. In such cases the question is not one of lapse, but of interpretation and intention. The mere lapse of intervening estates will never be allowed to defeat the remainder over unless these estates are coupled with conditions on which the subsequent limitations are in some way made to depend. Thus, under a devise and bequest to the testat[rix]'s son of real and personal property for life, and to his heirs in case he dies leaving issue, or if he dies without issue to the testat[rix]'s nephews and nieces, if the son should die without issue before the testat[rix], there would be no lapse, but the contingent limitation would take effect in favor of the nephews and nieces.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“II. I devise and bequeath unto my sister Eugenia S. Shannon all my estate both real and personal of which I may die seized and possessed. III. I hereby appoint my sister Eugenia Shannon as executrix without bond of my last will and testament, direct that she shall not be required to make any report to the courts touching my estate. IV. It is my desire that whatever part of my estate remaining in her possession at time of her death shall be divided equally between my brother William D. Simmon’s five children.”
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.