Burtt Will’s Empirical Analysis
1944
Citation profile
76 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions — most recently November 2017 · most notably Conway v. Town of Wilton (1996), Collopy v. Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary (1958)
76 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Smith v. Glen Alden Coal Co. · Davis v. Pennsylvania Co., Etc. · Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co. · Williams v. Miles · Commonwealth v. Wucherer
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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a statutory construction once made and followed should never be altered upon the changed views of new personnel of the court.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““. . . At the very outset of reasoning about the matter let it be observed that we are not dealing, as the court below seems to have concluded, with an attempt to set up an oral revocation of the will of 1924. It was revoked by writings admittedly signed by the testator, which writings so signed are produced. The court below says they are to be disregarded as writings to revoke the earlier will because as wills they could not be effective until he died, and neither for legal reasons was so effective. Dispositively this is so, but as ‘other writings’ which could be and were proved in the manner wills are, they were facts, which established that by solemn written declaration the decedent had wiped out the will of 1924. As against this we are asked to presume that when he tore and directed the further tearing of the pages of the 1927 will and thus revoked it, he intended to revive the one of 1924 when every circumstance in the record indicates that he did not. . . It is contended that wills are ambulatory and amount to nothing until the testator dies. The statute, however, does not limit revocation to ‘some other will’ but opens the door to ‘other writing’, and does not say this ‘other writing’ may not be an ineffective will, so long as it appears, as it does here, that the testator signed it. . . .””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. McCaffrey Estate“Otherwise the law would become the mere football of the successively changing personnel of the court, and `the knowne certaintie of the law,' which Lord Coke so wisely said `is the safetie of all,' would be utterly destroyed.”
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.