Murry v. Hennessey’s Empirical Analysis
1896
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently October 1948
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.
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Thus it will be observed that the Legislature in unequivocal language has made it imperative that a will, other than a nuncupative, when not signed by the testator himself, must, in addition to other requirements, be signed by some person in his presence, and by his express direction, or the instrument will be invalid. Mere knowledge of the testator that his name is being signed by another, or that the signing was acquiesced in or assented to by the testator, will not be sufficient The statute exacts more than this. It requires that the signing of a will by another must be done in pursuance of the previously expressed direction of the testator. The statute is meaningless, if this is not its scope and purpose. The same construction has been placed upon similar statutes in other states. Wait v. Frisbie, 45 Minn. 361 , 47 N.W. 1069 ; Greenough v. Greenough, 11 Pa. 489 [51 Am.Dec. 567]; Asay v. Hoover [ 5 Pa. 21 ], 45 Am.Dec. 714; Grabill v. Barr [ 5 Pa. 441 ], 47 Am.Dec. 420; Snyder v. Bull, 17 Pa. 60 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“No will made within this state, except such nuncupative wills as are mentioned in the following section, shall be effectual to pass any estate, whether real or personal, nor to charge, or in any way affect the same, unless it be in writing, and signed by the testator, or by some person in his presence, and by his express direction, and attested and subscribed in the presence of the testator by two or more competent witnesses,”
1 later decision 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.