Rice v. Rice’s Empirical Analysis
1883
Citation profile
34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently October 1962 · most notably 14 Wash. 2d 676 - In Re Bottger's Estate (1942), Williams v. Waller (1927)
34 state decisions — followed in 13 states
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.
Relationships
Relies on Fraser v. Jennison · Kempsey v. McGinniss · Beaubien v. Cicotte · Pierce v. Pierce
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““No act can well be more simple than the gift of his property by an old man to the members of his immediate family; and it ought not to be considered, by court, or witness or juror, to be an act requiring strong mind or considerable capacity. The power to make such a gift becomes an important protection in that period of life when incapacity to labor and to conduct profitable enterprises has arrived, and it is important to see that it be not taken away by erroneous notions as to what is required for testamentary capacity. It is very evident, we think, that some of the witnesses in this case expressed opinions to the jury which had been formed by standards altogether incorrect and misleading; and the opinions themselves were consequently worthless.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““After the full examination of the general subject of testamentary capacity in the case of Pierce v. Pierce, 38 Mich. 412 , and Fraser v. Jennison, 42 Mich. 206 , we do not deem it necessary to enlarge upon it here. But we repeat what we have said in substance in those cases, that a will is not to be set aside merely because the party making it was weak, or sometimes foolish, or lacked the average mental capacity of his neighbors, or did not dispose of what was his own as others who could know nothing of his reasons might think he ought to have done, nori necessarily because he was subject to delusions, when it is manifest that the delusions did not affect his gifts.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Emmons v. Emmons““Testamentary capacity is not therefore disproved by the determination that cause exists for guardianship.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Barney v. Barney
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.