Marburg v. Cole’s Empirical Analysis
1878
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 4 district · 40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions — most recently August 2017 · most notably In Re Ford (1980), Bertles v. . Nunan (1883)
4 federal appellate · 4 district · 40 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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““By the common law of England, which is the law of this State, except where it has been changed or modified by statute, a conveyance to husband and wife does not constitute them joint, tenants, nor are they tenants in common. They are, in the contemplation of the common law, but one person, and hence they take, not by moieties, but the entirety. They are each seized of the entirety, and the survivor takes the whole. As stated by Blackstone, ‘husband and wife being considered as one person in law, they cannot take the estate by moieties, but both are seized of the entirety, per tout, et non per my; the consequence of which is, that neither the husband nor the wife can dispose of any part without the assent of the other, but the whole must remain to the survivor.’ 2 Black Com. 182. This has been the doctrine of the common law from an early period of its history, for we find the principle as stated by Blackstone laid down in Littleton’s Tenures, sec. 291, from whence it has been almost literally transcribed by all subsequent writers on estates. Co. Litt., 187; 2 Cruise Dig., 492; 1 Prest. Est., 131-2; 4 Kent’s Com., 362; 1 Washb. R. Pro. (4th Ed.) 672, and the authorities there cited.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.