Hertrais v. Moore’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 9 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It would be a serious matter to invalidate a will because of a supposed change in intention on the part of a testator not given formal expression by him. Our conclusion avoids the difficulties faced in those jurisdictions where the statutes, permit the adoption of a contrary view, where the revocation is not presumptive but absolute, and evidence, not amounting to a republication, cannot be received of a testator’s actual intent to continue his will in force, and where the prevailing standard seems to be what a reasonable testator would be deemed to have intended. [citations omitted] If the changes relied upon by the respondents were held to achieve a revocation implied in law, other changes can be imagined which with equal plausibility might be urged to have similar effect. Persons who have drawn wills or who are to draw wills are not now to be exposed to the risk that, in the present circumstances and perhaps others, the courts might decree revocation notwithstanding that such persons do not avail themselves of the easy means afforded by statute for accomplishing revocation by their own intentional acts.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Luff v. Luff

2. “* * * excepting only that nothing contained in this section shall prevent the revocation implied by law from subsequent changes in the conditions or circumstances of the testator,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ireland v. Terwilliger

3. “the conditions or circumstances of the testator”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ireland v. Terwilliger