Reamer's Estate’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

97 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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]hen an appellate court has considered and decided a question submitted to it upon appeal, it will not, upon a subsequent appeal on another phase of the same case, reverse its previous ruling even though convinced that it was erroneous.... It is not, however, inflexible. It does not have the finality of the doctrine of res judicata.... The rule of “the law of the case” is one largely of convenience and public policy, both of which are served by stability in judicial decisions.... Thus there is an abundance of authority to the effect that where a prior decision is palpably erroneous, it is competent for the court, not as a matter of right but of grace, to correct it upon a second review ... where, following the decision on a former appeal, the court in another case has laid down a different rule either expressly or by necessary implication overruling the previous decision.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Upper Gwynedd Towamencin Municipal Authority v. Department of Environmental Protection

2. ““If, then, the law applied by the orphans’ court to an adjudication distributing one. fund need not be followed in a subsequent distribution of another fund in the same estate, it would seem a fortiori that an erroneous principle of law which is made the basis of a decision determining the appointment of the administrator is not binding upon the court in a subsequent proceeding in the estate in connection with the wholly distinct subject of distribution.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bell Estate