Burrage v. Bucknam’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 20 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “* * * Presumably she [the testatrix] expected that he [the beneficiary] would do his duty by his wife and by his children, if he should have any, although she intended to give him protection against creditors until he should reach the age of thirty, but we can find nothing whatever to suggest that she intended to do his duty for him in her will.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Van Dyke v. First National Bank · In Re Trust Created by Moulton

2. ““ * * * As the elder Mrs. Bucknam was disposing of her own property and could choose her own beneficiaries and was under no obligation to include her son’s family among them, this case is to be decided solely upon the construction of her will, and that is to be ascertained in the usual way by reading her intention from the language which she used in the light of the circumstances then existing. * * * * * * “We are not convinced that the straightforward and unqualified direction to pay the income to Robert Horton Bucknam can be construed to mean that part of the income shall be paid to his former wife or to a guardian of his child. Neither the wife nor the (then unborn) child is mentioned anywhere in the will as the recipient of such payments. To read their names into this clause of the will is to do violence to the plain words of the testatrix. Payment to a wife or child is not commonly regarded as satisfying an obligation to pay a husband or father, where there is no relation of agency. * * * ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cavett v. Buck