Richardson v. Green’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 5 district · 2 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The extraordinary writ will not be issued if relator has a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law. Relator urges that under subdivision 8, § 4620, 1 Ballinger’s Ann. Codes & St., the state is interested in testing the validity of the will, because, in the event of the establishment of intestacy and upon the failure of heirs the estate escheats to the state. The effect of the order admitting a will to probate, either written or nuncupative, is declared in section 6108, 2 Ballinger’s Ann. Codes & St., ‘as effectual in all cases as the original would be if produced and proven,’ and such effect by section 6112 is declared binding upon all persons if its validity shall not be contested within one year after the probate or rejection of the will. Assuming that the state may have such contingent interest in the estate as to have the real truth of the existence and validity of the will determined, it appears there is a plain procedure, which is speedy and adequate, pointed out in section 6110, Id., by which issues may properly be made up and tried and determined respecting all questions affecting the regularity of the execution or of the validity of the will, and the superior court entertaining such a suit may fully protect such rights in the estate by such stay of proceedings in the procedure in probate as may be necessary or effective. The conclusion, therefore, is that the appropriate procedure is designated in section 6110, supra, and there is no necessity shown for a mandate ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Carrau v. O'Calligan

2. ““The original probate, of course, is mere matter of state regulation, and depends entirely upon the local law, for it is that law which confers the power of making wills, and prescribes the conditions upon which alone they may take effect; and as, by the law in almost all the states, no instrument can he effective as a will until proved, no rights in relation to it, capable of being contested between parties, can arise until preliminary probate has been first made. Jurisdiction as to wills, and their probate as such, is neither included in nor excepted out of the grant of judicial power to the courts of the United States. So far as it is ex parte and merely administrative, it is not conferred, and it cannot be exercised by them at all until in a case at law or in equity its exercise becomes necessary to settle a controversy of which a court of the United States may take cognizance by reason of the citizenship of the parties. It has often been decided by this court that the terms ‘law’ and equity,' as used in the constitution, although intended to mark and fix the distinction between two systems of jurisprudence as known and practiced at the time of its adoption, do not restrict the jurisdiction conferred by it to the very rights and remedies then recognized and employed, but embrace as well not omy rights newly created by statutes of the states, as in cases of actions for the loss occasioned to survivors by the death of a person caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wart v. Wart

3. ““The suit for contesting a will after the probating of the same in Oregon is undoubtedly one between parties, and binding only the parties thereto. Here it will be seen that, if a suit is essentially a suit of a civil nature for equitable relief, and it is customary to prosecute the same in any state court where the action arose, whether the same is a county court, or a probate court, or a district or circuit court, the proper federal court will have concurrent jurisdiction of the same with such state courts, where the amount is sufficient, and the parties are citizens of different states, as prescribed, by the United States statutes. It should be observed, also, that when it is customary for such state courts to hear and determine such equitable suits, a United States court, under proper conditions, may hear them.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Williams v. Crabb