26 Ill. 2d 131 - Arnold v. Baker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 state decisions

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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Although abolished in Illinois in 1953, (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1955, chap. 30, pars. 186, 187), the rule was in force when the present deed was executed and delivered. It must be given effect, therefore, if it is applicable to the facts. It provides, briefly, that when a life estate is given to a person, followed by a remainder to his heirs, the heirs take nothing, but the life tenant takes the entire fee. (Orme v. Northern Trust Co., 25 Ill. 2d 151 . Docket Nos. 36509, 36510, 36512; Vangieson v. Henderson, 150 Ill. 119 .) The word ‘heirs,’ when used in its technical sense, refers to all those persons generally who inherit from the ancestor, and when so used defines the extent or quality of the estate conveyed and does not vest any interest in the ancestor’s kin. (Richardson v. Roney, 382 Ill. 528 .) Being a word of art, its fixed legal meaning is presumed to have been intended unless it clearly appears from the instrument itself that a more restrictive group was anticipated, (Carpenter v. Hubbard, 263 Ill. 571 ; Hege v. Provident Mutual Life Ins. Co., 341 Ill. 559 ; Lydick v. Tate, 380 Ill. 616 ,) and when the word ‘heirs’ is determined to have been used in its unrestricted sense, the rule in Shelleys case, in effect, converts the ancestor’s interest into a fee without regard to the interest which the grantor expected him to take. Porter v. Cutler, 380 Ill. 215 ; Hollenbaugh v. Smith, 296 Ill. 558 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Eiten v. Eiten