Lowry v. Hamilton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In a letter to her children, Ms. Wingard explained that she had provided disproportionately for Hamilton because Lowry and her brother were more financially secure than Hamilton, Hamilton needed her financial assistance, and because Hamilton took care of her in the last two years of her life. * * * Lowry urges that her mother was operating under mistakes of fact about her children, caused by Hamilton's repeated misrepresentations and omissions regarding her own divorce and the actions of her siblings, and that the serious untruths in light of Ms. Wingard's vulnerable mental and physical state amounted to undue influence. But the record is replete with evidence that Ms. Wingard was of sound mind and strong will during the time she lived with Hamilton and when she made her final decision about the testamentary distribution, making her capable of independently judging the character and conduct of her children. She too had read Hamilton's divorce settlement and was able to make her own assessment of Hamilton's financial situation. Moreover, there was no evidence that Ms. Wingard believed or relied upon any negative statements made by Hamilton or that Hamilton ever asked her mother to change her will or to leave her more than the other children. On the contrary, the evidence is that the unequal distribution was not the result of ill feeling but rather born of rational concern for Hamilton and gratitude for her care.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 857 So. 2d 240 - Derovanesian v. Derovanesian