DeWitt v. Duce’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably 125 Ill. App. 3d 938 - Nemeth v. Banhalmi (1984), 156 Ohio App. 3d 227 - Roll v. Edwards (2004)
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 46 state decisions — followed in 17 states
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 Lalli v. Lalli · Edmund Gaines and Wife v. Beverly Chew Rich · Latham v. Father Divine · Davis v. Gaines · Axe v. Wilson
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the circumstances surrounding the tortious conduct effectively preclude adequate relief in the probate court.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“[C]ourts from many other jurisdictions have squarely faced the issue of determining when a tortious interference action ought to be considered an impermissible collateral attack on the probate proceedings. The vast majority of these cases characterize as collateral a later tort action whenever the plaintiff has failed to pursue an adequate remedy in the probate proceedings ... When plaintiff was the only heir and could have taken intestate by proving her claim of undue influence to defeat the will at probate, no later tort action is allowable to relitigate the undue influence claim.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[I]f adequate relief is available in a probate proceeding, then that remedy must be exhausted before a tortious interference claim may be pursued.”
4 later decisions 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.