Williams v. Watt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 14 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The broad distinction between vested and contingent remainders is this: In the first, there is some person in esse known and ascertained, who, by the will or deed creating the estate, is to take and enjoy the estate, and whose right to such remainder no contingency can defeat,. In the second, it depends upon the happening of a contingent event, whether the estate limited as a remainder shall ever take effect at all. The event may either never happen, or it may not happen until after the particular estate upon which it depended shall have been determined, so that the estate in remainder will never take effect.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Shriners Hospitals for Children, In Its Capacity as Beneficiary of the Alfred J. and Pegge A. Cooksley Trust v. First Northern Bank of Wyoming, In Its Capacity as Trustee of the Alfred J. and Pegge A. Cooksley Trust

2. “The existence of an estate in fee simple determinable requires the presence of special limitations. Restatement of the Law of Property, § 44, p. 121. The term 'special limitation’ denotes that part of the language of a conveyance which causes the created interest automatically to expire upon the occurrence of the stated event. Restatement of the Law of Property, § 23, p. 55. An estate in fee simple determinable may be created so as to be defeasible upon the occurrence of an event which is not certain ever to occur. Restatement of the Law of Property, § 44, p. 125.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wood v. Board of County Commissioners

3. “Although it may be uncertain whether a remainder will ever take effect in possession, it will nevertheless be a vested remainder if the interest is fixed. It is the uncertainty of the right of enjoyment, and not the uncertainty of its actual enjoyment, which renders a remainder contingent and distinguishes it from a vested remainder.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Shriners Hospitals for Children, In Its Capacity as Beneficiary of the Alfred J. and Pegge A. Cooksley Trust v. First Northern Bank of Wyoming, In Its Capacity as Trustee of the Alfred J. and Pegge A. Cooksley Trust