Smith v. Nelson’s Empirical Analysis
1947
Citation profile
28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently August 1980 · most notably Brittain v. Ingram (1968), Perdue v. Roberts (1975)
28 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 Achelis v. Musgrove · Teal v. Mixon · Castleberry v. Stringer · Montgomery v. Wilson · Montgomery v. Montgomery
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If the word ‘heirs’ means ‘children’, under the allegation of the bill whatever is left of the estate of * * * [the testator] goes to * * [the son] if the testator intended that the devise to * * * [the daughter] was limited to a base fee by the devise to * * * [the son]. Reeves v. Tatum, 233 Ala. 455 , 172 So. 247 ; Montgomery v. Montgomery, * * * [ 236 Ala. 161 , 181 So. 92 (1938)]; Sections 76 and 77, Title 47, Code of 1940.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“* * *, if she has no heirs, and there being any of the estate left, it should go to my son. * *”
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.