Lynch v. Bunting’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 6 state decisions

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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The limiting phrase of the deed, however, did not stop with the foregoing quotation, but continued ‘and (the deed or the estate) shall be good so long as there is a schoolhouse kept on it and school kept there at the customary times of teaching’. “These words are either a merely reiterated and repeated desire of user, or they constitute a special limitation of the estate. Apt and proper words for the purpose of creating a special limitation are made use of, and, except for an inclusion of an express right of reverter, it is somewhat difficult to see how a grantor could have more concisely and effectually declared such intent. The fact that the possibility of reverter is not expressly mentioned and reserved to the grantors is not a material circumstance, for such possibility of reverter is a legal consequence of the estate itself, rather than a fact which creates the estate. If the possibility of reverter becomes operative and the estate is returned to the grantors, the estate is not restored to the grantors as something conveyed by the reverting clause, but because the fee has ceased to be in the grantees, by reason of the happening of the prescribed event. Cookman v. Silliman, 22 Del.Ch. 303 , 2 A.2d 166 , at page 168.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bailey v. Eagle Mountain Telephone Co.

2. ““Because it is essential that in order to introduce a determinable feature into a fee simple conveyance that the instrument itself must, on its face, contain a specific intent so to do, so the use of apt and proper words may be given proper consideration. All the au- tkorities, ancient and modern, are agreed that the most apt and proper words for the creation of a fee simple, determinable are ‘until’, ‘during’, ‘so long as’ and similar expressions, but other words may have the same effect. It will be observed that the apt phrase ‘so long as’ is a term used in the present deed. “The limiting langauge of the present deed is divisible in two parts. There is first the expression ‘and the parties of the first part have deeded this land to the parties of the second part for the purpose of school and no other purpose ***.’””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bailey v. Eagle Mountain Telephone Co.