Lifter Estate’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
77 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions — most recently March 1991 · most notably Sowers Estate (1956), McWilliams v. McCabe (1962)
77 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 Newlin Estate · Capital Bank and Trust Company's Petition · Eureka Casualty Co. v. Henderson · Riegel v. Oliver · Anderson Estate
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.
“`. . . in McFadden Estate, 381 Pa. 464 , 112 A. 2d 148 , the Court, quoting from Lifter Estate, 377 Pa. 227, 231 , 103 A. 2d 670 , said (page 467): "`The intention of the testator is the pole star in the interpretation of every will and that intention must be ascertained from a consideration of the entire will, including its scheme of distribution as well as its language, together with all the surrounding and attendant circumstances: Lyle Estate, 374 Pa. 344 , 97 A. 2d 830 ; Brumbach Estate, 373 Pa. 302 , 95 A. 2d 514 ; Newlin Estate, 367 Pa. 527 , 80 A. 2d 819 ; Anderson Estate, 373 Pa. 294 , 95 A. 2d 674 .'”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Wanamaker Estate“The facts in the instant case bring it within the aforesaid requirements; the problems involved are so unusual and difficult, litigation was so imminent and inevitable, and the peril to the Federation was so great and immediate that we consider this to be an appropriate matter for a declaratory judgment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Johnson Estate
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.