Mandlebaum v. McDonell’s Empirical Analysis
1874
Citation profile
57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 1983 · most notably Corrigan v. Buckley (1926), In re Estate of Walkerly (1895)
57 state decisions — followed in 21 states
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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“_ “We are entirely satisfied there has never been a time since the statute quia, emptores when a restriction in a conveyance of a vested estate in fee simple, in possession or remainder, against selling for a particular period of time, was valid by the common law. And we think it would be unwise and injurious to admit into the law the principle contended for by the defendants’ counsel, that such restrictions should be held valid, if imposed only for a reasonable time. It is safe to say that every estate depending upon such a question would, by the very fact of such a question existing, lose a large share of its market value. Who can say whether the time is reasonable, until the question has been settled in the court of last resort; and upon what standard .of certainty can the court decide it? Or, depending as it must upon all the peculiar facts and circumstances of each particular case, is the question to be submitted to a jury? The only safe rule of decision is to hold, as I understand the common law for ages to have been, that a condition or restriction which would suspend all power of alienation for a single day, is inconsistent with the estate granted, unreasonable and void.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““It is quite possible that many restrictions or qualifications upon the right of devisees or grantees may be made effectual by making the estate itself dependent upon such condition, to which it could not be subjected if the estate given is absolute, as it is admitted to be here. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Smith v. Smith
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.