Ferguson v. Cramer’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
6 district · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently August 2024
6 district · 17 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 Flaherty v. Weinberg · Copenhaver v. Rogers · 132 Ill. 2d 507 - In Re Gerard · 123 Wash. 2d 835 - Trask v. Butler · Noble v. Bruce
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Particularly in the case of services rendered for the fiduciary of a decedent's estate, we would apprehend great danger in finding stray duties in favor of beneficiaries. Typically in estate administration conflicting interests vie for recognition. The very purpose of the fiduciary is to serve the * interests of the estate, not to promote the objectives of one group of legatees over the interests of conflicting claimants. The fiduciary's attorney, as his legal adviser, is faced with the same task of disposition of conflicts. It is of course the purpose and obligation of both the fiduciary and his attorney to serve the estate. In such capacity they are obligated to communicate with, and to arbitrate conflicting claims among, those interested in the estate. While the fiduciary in the performance of this service may be exposed to the potential of malpractice (and hence is subject to surcharge when his administration is completed), the attorney by definition represents only one party: the fiduciary. It would be very dangerous to conclude that the attorney, through performance of his service to the administrator and by way of communication to estate beneficiaries, subjects himself to claims of negligence from the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are entitled to evenhanded and fair administration by the fiduciary. They are not owed a duty directly by the fiduciary's attorney.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“to seek the advice of an attorney in performing his or her duties rather than to provide representation to creditors and beneficiaries of the estate. Thus, where a personal representative hires an attorney to assist him or her in handling the estate, as in the instant case, the direct purpose in hiring the attorney is not to benefit the beneficiaries....[A]ny benefit to the beneficiaries from the personal representative's attorney is merely incidental. Such incidental benefit is not sufficient to impose a duty upon an attorney. In cases such as the instant case, the attorney owes a duty solely to his or her client, the personal representative.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“(1) the estate and its beneficiaries are incidental, not intended, beneficiaries of that attorney-personal representative relationship; (2) the estate heirs may bring a direct cause of action against the personal representative for breach of fiduciary duty; and (3) the unresolvable conflict of interest an estate attorney encounters in deciding whether to represent the personal representative, the estate, or the estate heirs unduly burdens the legal profession.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Allen v. Stoker
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.