Oliver v. Wells’s Empirical Analysis
1930
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 84 later decisions — most recently July 2005 · most notably Estate of Troy (1931), In re the Estate of Zweig (1932)
2 federal appellate · 70 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Wright v. . Wright · Matter of Durand · Kalish v. . Kalish · Matter of Trevor · In Re the Will of Horner
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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The general principle is that election must be made within a time that is equitable in the light of all the circumstances. This time may be very long, if injury to others will not result from the delay, and by the same token very short if the failure to act promptly may work injury or hardship .... Broadly speaking, we may say that at least there should be adequate opportunity to investigate the cost of the burden as compared with the value of the benefit and to acquire that knowledge of the facts without which choice, if made, would be uninformed and unintelligent ... Indeed authority is not lacking that relief may be granted against an election once declared if made in ignorance of values or misconception of the law ... Liberality may well be greater when indulgence is craved in advance of the event. Upon a prayer for such indulgence all ' the circumstances are to be weighed. The time fairly to be allowed, where the will is plain or uncontested and values are readily ascertainable, may be inadequate where there is contest or obscurity or a call for inquiry and reflection. Sometimes the period of permissible delay is governed by a statute with the result that discretion is excluded ... In the absence of statute, the question is one of fact whenever conflicting inferences are possible. [Oliver v. Wells, 254 N.Y. 451, 459 , 173 N.E. 676, 679 (1930); citations omitted]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““There is indeed a technical rule, reluctantly enforced by courts when tokens are not at hand to suggest an opposite intention, that a gift of a 'residue of a residue’ is not to be augmented by the lapse of another gift out of the general residuum.””
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.