Henkel v. Hood’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 40 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[The husband’s] authority to bring and maintain the action flows from the [New Mexico] wrongful death statute itself and not from the probate, or estate, laws of this or any other state [and it is] incorrect to say that his power to sue in this connection should be tested by his authority to administer generally the estate of the deceased in the state issuing the letters. It is unimportant that the community administrator would not have had the power to bring this suit in Texas, if as much could be said. We do not test the power of the plaintiff by the laws of Texas but by those of New Mexico. We look to the Texas appointment only to determine whether plaintiffs status is such as will meet the rather broad definition, “personal representative”; not a “personal representative who would have the power to prosecute such a suit in Texas” as is contended by defendants.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re the Estate of Sumler · State Ex Rel. Skinner v. District Court of the Tenth Judicial District of the State

2. “Every such action as mentioned in Section 41-2-1 NMSA 1978 shall be brought by and in the name or names of the personal representative or representatives of such deceased person, and the jury in every such action may give such damages, compensatory and exemplary, as they shall deem fair and just, taking into consideration the pecuniary injury or injuries resulting from such death to the surviving party or parties entitled to the judgment, or any interest therein, recovered in such action, and also having regard to the mitigating or aggravating circumstances attending such wrongful act, neglect or default. The proceeds of any judgment obtained in any such action shall not be hable for any debt of the deceased: provided, he or she shall have left a husband, wife, child, father, mother, brother, sister or child or children of the deceased child, but shall be distributed as follows: First. If there be a surviving husband or wife, and no child, then to such husband or wife; if there be a surviving husband or wife and a child or children or grandchildren, then equally to each, the grandchild or grandchildren taking by right of representation; if there be no husband or wife, but a child or children, or grandchild or grandchildren, then to such child or children and grandchild or grandchildren by right of representation; if such deceased be a minor, childless and unmarried, then to the father and mother, who shall have an equal interest in the judgment, or if either of them be dead, ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re the Estate of Sumler

3. “"Thus, the personal representative who makes a recovery under the Act, * * * serves as a trustee, a `statutory trustee,' for discoverable and identifiable beneficiaries in the line of named kinship or descent. Nevertheless, by express mandate of the Act, he is none the less a trustee for the state and for estate creditors where none of the named kin were left, or the line of descent runs out and exhausts itself in the fruitless search for an heir. This is rendered clear by the italicized language of the statute quoted, supra."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stang v. Hertz Corporation