John Dandridge v. Martha Washington's Executors’s Empirical Analysis
27 U.S. 370 · 1829
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1989
2 federal appellate · 11 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.
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.
“But we do not think the bequest is confined to the expense of acquiring the trade so as to be enabled to exercise it in the common way. Such does not appear to have been the intent of the testatrix. Her bounty is extended to the proper education of three relatives so that they may be severally fitted and accomplished in some useful trade. Their education is a primary object, as well as their acquisition of the trade, and when we consider the situation and character of the parties and the language of the will, we cannot doubt that the testatrix intended such education as would fit her relatives to hold a distinguished place in that line of life in which she designed them to move. The sum allowed for the object ought to be liberal such as would accomplish it if the fund from which it was to be drawn would admit of it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.