Fownes Trust’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Prior to the Estates Act of April 24, 1947, P.L. 100, 20 P.S. § 301.1 et seq., if a gift was made by an inter vivos deed, the law was long and well established that children and grandchildren meant natural children and grandchildren, and issue meant issue of the body, in the absence of language in the deed showing a contrary intent. In other words, such a gift did not include an adopted child or adopted grandchild or adopted issue. Storb Appeal, 400 Pa. 567, 571-572 , 163 A. 2d 302 . The same interpretation and principle is enunciated in Howlett Estate, 366 Pa. 293, 297 , 77 A. 2d 390 ; Holton Estate, 399 Pa. 241, 248 , 159 A. 2d 883 ( and eleven cases cited therein ); and in Tower Estate, 410 Pa. 389 , 189 A. 2d 870 . ". . .: `. . . In Howlett Estate, supra, the testator. . . created a trust with life estates to his children and then to a child's issue, or, in default of issue, to surviving children and the issue of deceased children. During the term of the trust a son died leaving no natural born children but a daughter who had been adopted in 1897. Ruling that this adopted daughter of the deceased son was not entitled to take as "issue”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Benedum Estate