Hunt v. Phillips’s Empirical Analysis
1904
Citation profile
14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently December 1998
14 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.
Relationships
Relies on In re Estate of McDevitt · Clapp v. . Fullerton · In re the Estate of Gorkow · Mitchell v. Mitchell · Higgins v. Nethery
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A great deal is said in the elaborate briefs of counsel for appellants upon the duty of courts to construe wills with reference to the rights of heirs at law conferred by the law of descent and distribution. But the rights conferred by the law of descent and distribution are no more potent than the right conferred by the law to make a voluntary distribution of one’s estate. It is doubtless true that the law of descent and distribution disposes of the estate, in the absence of testamentary disposition, in accordance with the dictates of common affection, but the right of independent disposition is just as absolute, and no presumption can be indulged in against the exercise of this legal right. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The right of a testator to dispose of his estate, depends neither on the justice of his prejudices nor the soundness of his reasoning. He may do what he will with his own; and if there be no defect of testamentary capacity, and no undue influence or fraud, the law gives effect to his will, though its provisions are unreasonable and unjust.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“He may disinherit either wholly or partially his children and leave his property to strangers to gratify his spite, or charities to gratify his pride, and we must give effect to his will, however much we may condemn the course he has pursued.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.