Goldstone v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
325 U.S. 687 · 1945
Citation profile
70 federal appellate · 12 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 179 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1984 · most notably Spiegel's Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1949), Spiegel's Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1949)
70 federal appellate · 12 district · 18 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedGoldstone v. United States (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 811
Relies on Helvering v. Hallock · Chase Nat Bank of City of New York v. United States · Helvering v. Le Gierse · Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies · Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Field's Estate
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 179 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Events that might have but failed to take place so as to erase a decedent's reversionary interest must be ignored * * *.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““reaches all inter vivos transfers which may be resorted to, as a substitute for a will, in making dispositions of property operative at death.., It thus sweeps into the gross estate all property the ultimate possession or enjoyment of which is held in suspense until the moment of the decedent’s death or thereafter. Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Co. v. Rothensies, 324 U.S. 108 , 111 [ 65 S.Ct. 508 , 510, 89 L.Ed. 782 ]. In so doing, § 302(c) pierces all the verbiage of ‘unwitty diversities of the law of property.’ Helvering v. Hallock, supra, [ 309 U.S. 106 ] 118 [ 60 S.Ct. 444 , 450, 84 L.Ed. 604 ]. Testamentary dispositions of an inter vivos nature cannot escape the force of this section by hiding behind legal niceties contained in devices and forms created by conveyances.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(C) * * * A transfer of an interest in property made by the decedent prior to October 8, 1949 * * * is not `intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after his death' unless possession or enjoyment of the transferred property can, through ownership of such interest, be obtained only by surviving the decedent.”
2 later decisions 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.