Mattern v. Herzog’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions — most recently July 2018 · most notably Sonny Arnold, Inc. v. Sentry Savings Ass'n (1982), Crestview, Ltd. v. Foremost Insurance Co. (1981)
3 federal appellate · 37 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 Spann v. City of Dallas · Spann v. City of Dallas · Barton v. Thaw · Womack v. Womack · Kelly v. Womack
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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The remainder of all our real estate, wherever located or situated, which we may die seized and possessed of we give and bequeath to our beloved children, Chris Mattern, Jack J. Mattern, Magade-line Herzog, Paul J. Mattern, Barbara Mock, Reginia Gostslig, Johnnie Mattern, Agnes Pustka and Monika Mattern to share and share alike in the division thereof; however, this bequest is made to our said named children with the provision that our son Chris Mattem shall have the right to purchase from each of the other children their interest in said real estate for the sum of $45.00 per acre, and in making such purchase from said other children our said son Chris Mattem shall be entitled to deduct from the price of $45.00 per acre such sums of money as he may have advanced to us during our lifetimes. (Emphasis theirs.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Randolph v. Terrell“(1) disabling restraint—attempt by an otherwise effective conveyance or contract to cause a later conveyance to be void; (2) promissory restraint—attempt to cause a later conveyance to impose contractual liability on the one who makes the later conveyance-when such liability results from a breach of an agreement not to convey, and; (3) forfeiture restraint—attempt to terminate or subject to termination all or part of the property interest conveyed.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“It will not do to mechanically apply the rule applicable to disabling restraints and thus inhibit the employment of desirable contractual and testamentary provisions and unnecessarily circumscribe the freedom of contract and the power of testamentary disposition. Before the option may be stricken it must appear that it bears some relationship to the evil which the rules governing undesirable restraints are designed to prevent.”
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.