Smith v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . The intent must be drawn from the will, not the will from the intent. “The rule of law applicable here is expressed in Page on Wills: ‘. .In determining the testator’s intention, the true purpose of the inquiry is to ascertain not what he meant to express apart from the language used, but what the words he has used do express. Accordingly, when there is no dispute as to what words were written in the will, it is a fundamental principle that extrinsic evidence cannot be received to show that the testator intended something outside of, and independent of such written words, to add words to those in the will, to contradict its language, or to take words away from those in the will, . .’ 4 Page on Wills (Lifetime Ed.) 662 et seq., sec. 1617.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Griffin v. Nehls

2. ““. . . This presumption is but one of the factors to be considered in arriving at the intention of the testatrix as expressed in the will itself. It cannot be invoked to add to or to change the express language of a will. Kostroun v. Plsek, Tex.Com.App.1929, 15 S.W.2d 220 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Griffin v. Nehls