Rape v. Lyerly’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently July 2014 · most notably 174 N.C. App. 49 - Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. v. Head & Engquist Equipment, L.L.C. (2005), 124 N.C. App. 383 - Computer Decisions, Inc. v. Rouse Office Management of North Carolina, Inc. (1996)
38 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.
Relationships
Relies on Teachey v. . Gurley · Peaseley v. VIRGINIA IRON, COAL AND COKE COMPANY · Schoolfield v. Collins · McLean v. Keith · Bolman v. Overall
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There can be no question that a contract upon a sufficient consideration to devise lands is valid and may be enforced in a court of equity, the decree being so drawn as to declare the parties to whom the land is devised, or, in the event of a failure to devise, the heirs at law to hold such lands in trust for the persons to whom the testator had contracted to devise them. It is settled by a line of authorities which are practically uniform, that while a court of chancery is without power to compel the execution of a will, and therefore the specific execution of an agreement to make a will can not be enforced, yet if the contract is sufficiently proved and appears to have been binding on the decedent, and the usual conditions relating to specific performance have been complied with, then equity will specifically enforce it by seizing the property which is the subject matter of the agreement, and fastening a trust on it in favor of the person to whom the decedent agreed to give it by his will (emphasis added).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Although a “person interested in the event” of the action is disqualified, his interest must be a “direct legal or pecuniary interest” in the outcome of the litigation. “The key word in this phrase is ‘legal,’ the cases as a whole showing that the ultimate test is whether the legal rights of the witness will be affected one way or the other by the judgment in the case. The witness may have a very large pecuniary interest in fact — as the interest of a wife in an important- law suit to which her husband is a party— and still be competent, while a comparatively slight legal interest will disqualify the witness.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[A] decree for specific performance is nothing more or less than a means of compelling a party to do precisely what he ought to have done without being coerced by a court. * * * The foregoing impels the conclusion that the rights of plaintiffs are determinable as if [James] had died leaving a valid, probated will, in which he devised his real property in the manner set forth in . . . the 1959 contract-will. Had he done so, plaintiffs would take as the issue of Mildred by virtue of G.S. 31-42(a) 1 , [North Carolina’s anti-lapse statute].”
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.