Chard v. Darlington’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently August 1988
11 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 Huntington v. Attrill · Chadwick v. Cornish · Jackson v. Lamar · Newton v. Newton · Carson v. Smith
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e are of the opinion that section 1152 does not apply to a case where the defendant acted in good faith under color of legal right, supposing he had title to the property or a right to enforce a lien thereon, though he should subsequently be unable to establish such title or right. The statute is highly penal in its consequences, and was evidently intended to punish those who might wrongfully or in bad faith interfere with, convert to their own use, or dispose of the property of a deceased person, by mulcting them in double damages; and its language should, we think, be so construed. To subject the defendant to the penalty given by the statute, it should appear that he was an intermeddler, and acted from wrong motives or in bad faith; otherwise, the executor or administrator should be satisfied with the ordinary remedies given him by law____ They [the defendants] may have been ill-advised, or may have mistaken their rights; but, until it is made to appear that they acted from wrongful motives or in bad faith, the plaintiff is not entitled to recover double damages from them.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“One who embezzles, alienatés, or converts to his own use the property of decedent before the appointment of an executor or administrator is liable for double the value of the property under a statute expressly so providing, but some bad faith or wrongful conduct on the part of defendant is necessary to subject him to such penalty, and the term ‘alienate’ as used in the statute signifies a wrongful transfer to another.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Our statute (§ 595.04) does not forbid testimony of acts of the decedent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Brennan v. Carroll
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.