Johns v. Cobb’s Empirical Analysis
402 F.2d 636 · 1968
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently June 1985 · most notably Tafel Estate (1972), Riggs National Bank of Washington v. Summerlin (1971)
11 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 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 In re the Construction of the Will of Upjohn · In Re the Estate of Coe · Estate of Heard · Holden v. First National Bank & Trust Co. · New York Central Railroad v. Lefkowitz
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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]n such a situation, where the record and the inferences to be drawn therefrom do not suggest what the actual intent of the testator might have been, it is our duty to supply a reasonable intent by implication. Our guide in this undertaking is necessarily public policy, in accordance with which we assume the testators would have wished their wills to be interpreted. 131 U.S.App.D.C., at 87, 402 F.2d, at 638 .”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Our cases have seldom discussed the term in relation to adoption, and enough uncertainty surrounds its usage that we doubt a competent draftsman who wanted to exclude adopted children would rely on the word “issue” alone to express that purpose. “Terms such as ‘issue’ * * * may or may not include adopted children; read alone, and apart from context, those words are ambiguous.” In re Upjohn’s Will, 304 N.Y. 366 , 374, 107 N.E.2d 492 , 495 (1952).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In keeping with this policy, and in view of the unmistakable trend of judicial decisions in other jurisdictions, we hold that, absent any contrary indication of the testators’ actual intent, appellant should be deemed to be included within the terms of the testamentary gifts to “issue” in the wills now before us.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.