Ferguson v. Mason’s Empirical Analysis
1884
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently January 1972 · most notably Pipkin v. Williams (1893), Teske v. Dittberner (1903)
2 federal appellate · 29 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“• “True, the statute (ch. 270, Laws of 1864) provides that ‘in case the owner of any homestead shall die intestate, leaving a widow and no children, such homestead shall descend to his widow.’ . . . The husband dying intestate and without issue, the widow is his heir by the statute of descents in force when ch. 270 was enacted, and would inherit the homestead without the provision above cited. That provision was manifestly inserted for the purpose of exempting the homestead, should the widow inherit it under the statute of descents, from liability to be sold for the debts of the deceased husband; and not to increase or extend her rights in the homestead as a homestead. It is merely an immunity in her favor in respect to a particular kind of property, and the statute would have accomplished the same purpose had the immunity been inserted in the statute of descents, or in that for the sale of lands by administrators to pay the debts of their intestates. It does not, we think, enlarge her estate, present or prospective, in the homestead as such. That terminates in every case when she marries or dies. If she inherited the whole estate, it goes to her heir or devisee, not by virtue of her homestead right, but because she owned the whole estate under the statute of descents.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Van Matre v. Swank““In case the owner of any homestead shall die intestate, leaving a widow and no children, such homestead shall descend to his widow; and in case such owner die intestate, leaving a widow and children, such homestead shall descend to his widow during her widowhood, and in case of her marriage or death, the same shall descend to his legal heirs; and in case such owner die intestate, leaving any child or children, or lineal descendants, but no widow, such homestead shall descend to his legal heirs; and in all cases mentioned in this section, such homestead shall descend freed from the incum--brances of all judgments and claims against the intestate or his estate, except mortgages lawfully executed thereon.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Van Matre v. Swank
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.