Cowan v. Pleasant’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 15 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When William Edgar Holland murdered his wife he did acquire a practical, substantial benefit by that act. Prior to that murder, both he and his wife were each entitled to enjoy the whole, and each had a chance of survivorship and consequent acquisition of the whole as a tenant in severalty. The practical benefit that he acquired by the death of his wife does satisfy the conditions imposed by the common law relative to estate by entirety so that the survivor may take all. One must not only be a survivor in fact but also a survivor in contemplation of law. Indispensable is the prerequisite that decease must be in the ordinary course of events and subject only to the vicissitudes of life. The killer can assert no right to complete ownership as survivor. Equity will not allow him to profit by his own crime.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Duncan v. Vassaur

2. “"The tenor of the Eversole opinion is that statutes pertaining to the inheritance of property must be followed strictly. It was said also in that case that, cases, involving the rights of a beneficiary who murdered the insured for the purpose of obtaining the proceeds of a policy on the latter's life, were not in point, because the wrongful act of a beneficiary was a fraud upon a contract right. The case under consideration is more akin to the category of cases involving contractual rights, because of the manner of acquisition of the property, than it is to those involving inheritance questions. * * * It follows that the Eversole case is not controlling here."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 85 So. 2d 847 - Hill v. Morris

3. “... assuming that the husband did survive the wife, we have pointed out already that no right of survivorship could be asserted for him, or by his heirs. The husband’s heirs, however, are entitled to his one-half of the property, just as would have occurred in the event the marital relation had been severed. Id. at 496 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Heuser v. Cohen