Meyer v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A review of the authorities is scarcely neeessary to sustain the proposition that the contemplation of death referred to in the statute is not that contemplation of death which must be present with all of us, mindful of its certainty at some time, we know not when, but it is that state of mind which by reason of advanced. age, serious illness, or other producing cause induces the conviction that death in the near future is to be anticipated. If it be said that there need not be a conviction that death is imminent, there must at least be a belief .that it is to be expected in the very near future rather than in the usual course of events. And in this state of mind, in. this belief in the near approach of death, must be found the motive for the conveyance if it is properly to be characterized as made in contemplation of death. “The question necessarily involves the determination of a mental state, and that, too, the mental state at a given, time of one, who, at the time the question is for determination, has passed from life. The difficulties are therefore apparent. In the absence of proof as to express declarations of the decedent— seldom, we may assume, available to- the Government — the burden of affirmative proof could but rarely, if ever, be successfully assumed; and wisely, therefore, and perhaps of necessity also, the law has relieved the Government, under the condition stated, of the burden and created the presumption. “But what is the result? Can it go further than to”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Smart v. United States · Wells v. United States