Rusing v. Rusing’s Empirical Analysis
1865
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently October 2002 · most notably Johnson v. Askey (1901), May v. Fletcher (1872)
25 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 Armstrong v. Berreman
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“What is meant by the words “my heirs,” in the clause of the will above quoted? It does not mean the widow, who under our law would be the sole heir. This is plain. By the word “heirs” more than one person must have been meant, and besides, it would make nonsense of the will to hold that the widow was meant, for then the effect would be to give her the estate for life, and, upon her death, the remainder in fee. The nearest of kin must have been meant. It follows, therefore, that when she elected to take as widow, under the law, thereby obtaining one-third of the land in fee, that the effect of the devise would be to give the remaining two-thirds, after her death, to the [testator’s brother’s and sister’s descendants], the next of kin....”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. College v. Woollen
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.