Garrison Estate’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently December 1987 · most notably Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Brown (1966), Little Estate (1961)
24 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 Fire Insurance Patrol v. Boyd · Commonwealth Ex Rel. Minerd v. Margiotti · Abel v. Girard Trust Co. · Pruner Estate · Curry Appeal
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The beneficiary of charitable trusts is the general public to whom the social and economic advantages of the trusts accrue. But because the public is the object of the settlors’ benefactions, private parties have insufficient financial interest in charitable trusts to oversee their enforcement. Consequently, the Commonwealth itself must perform this function if charitable trusts are to be properly supervised. The responsibility for public supervision traditionally has been delegated to the attorney general to be performed as an exercise of his parens patriae powers.” See also Garrison Estate, 391 Pa. 234, 238 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The responsibility for public supervision traditionally has been delegated to the attorney general to be performed as an exercise of his parens patriae powers. . . . These are the ancient powers of guardianship over persons under disability and of protectorship of the public interest, which originally were held by the Crown of England as the ‘father of the country,’ 3 Blackstone, Commentaries 47, Fontain v. Ravenell, 58 U.S. (17 How.) 369 (1855), and which as part of the common law devolved upon the states and federal government . . . Specifically, these powers permitted the sovereign, wherever necessary, to see to the proper establishment of charities through his officer, the attorney general, and to exercise supervisory jurisdiction over all charitable trusts. 3 Blackstone, Commentaries, 427. . .””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Cain 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.