Black v. Edwards’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently April 2012
12 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 Hankerson v. Moody · Williams v. Williams · City of Hopewell v. County of Prince George
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e are of [the] opinion that the emphasized portion of Code § 20-155 clearly limits its provisions to those contracts affecting those “rights and obligations” that arise from the marital relationship. Here, each spouse’s contractual intent to benefit third parties after the death of both spouses did not affect the “rights and obligations” arising from the [decedent’s and his wife’s] marital relationship. Thus, we conclude that Code § 20-155 is inapplicable.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“may expressly appear in the language of the instrument, or it may be supplied by competent witnesses who testify to admissions of the testators, or it may result as an implication from the circumstances and relations of the parties and what they have actually provided for by the instrument.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Keith v. Lulofs“for the purpose of settling the rights and obligations of either or both [spouses]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Plunkett v. Plunkett
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.