Scott v. West’s Empirical Analysis
1885
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 80 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 82 later decisions — most recently March 1974 · most notably In re Donges's Estate (1899), Ford v. Ford (1887)
1 federal appellate · 80 state decisions — followed in 11 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 McArthur v. Scott · Manice v. . Manice · Doe Lessee of Poor v. Considine · Moore v. Lyons · Schettler v. . Smith
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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““For many reasons, not the least of which are that testators usually have in mind the actual enjoyment, rather than the technical ownership, of their property, and that sound policy as well as practical convenience requires that titles should be vested at the earliest period, it has long been a settled rule of construction in the courts of England and America that estates, legal or equitable, given by will, should always be regarded as vesting immediately, unless the testator has by very clear words manifested an intention that they should be contingent upon a future event.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.