MacMackin Estate’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The appellant, in ascribing error to the action of the court below in such regard,, stresses and relies wholly upon the fact that, in making the bequests of the annual sums to the individuals named in the will, the testator spoke, in that connection, of payment ‘from the income’ or ‘out of the income’ of the trust estate. If that were the extent of the decedent’s testamentary words and intendment with respect to the character of the bequests, it would at once have to be conceded that they carried with them no more than a right to participate pro tanto in distributions of income annually derived from the trust estate and that, therefore, they were not annuities in the strict legal signification of that term. But, that is by no means all the will contains in material regard. . . .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 8 Pa. D. & C.2d 560 - Dwight Estate

2. ““On the basis of the wording of the will we have, therefore, to determine how the testator really regarded the bequests and from what source or sources he intended them to be paid in full on the specified annual basis. The seeming conflict between bequests payable ‘out of income’ and their defined status as ‘annuities’ is to be resolved in accordance with the intent derivable from the will as a whole, Calder’s Estate, 343 Pa. 30 , 34 . . . ; Brennan’s Estate, 324 Pa. 410, 413-414 . . . .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 8 Pa. D. & C.2d 560 - Dwight Estate