7 Cal. 4th 246 - Burch v. George’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
203 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 206 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably 7 Cal. 4th 1193 - Lundquist v. Reusser (1994), 77 Cal. App. 4th 436 - People v. Williams (2000)
203 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.
Relationships
Applies 29 U.S.C. § 1001 (§ 2 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1055 (§ 205 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1056 (§ 206 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1132 (§ 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1140 (§ 510 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1144 (§ 514 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 301
Relies on Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc. · Pilot Life Insurance v. Dedeaux · Hines v. Davidowitz · Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon · Metropolitan Life Insurance v. Massachusetts
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 206 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““An in terrorem or no contest clause in a will or trust instrument creates a condition upon gifts and dispositions provided therein. [Citation.] In essence, a no contest clause conditions a beneficiary’s right to take the share provided to that beneficiary under such an instrument upon the beneficiary’s agreement to acquiesce to the terms of the instrument. [Citation.] “No contest clauses are valid in California and are favored by the public policies of discouraging litigation and giving effect to the purposes expressed by the testator. [Citations.] Because a no contest clause results in a forfeiture, however, a court is required to strictly construe it and may not extend it beyond what was plainly the testator’s intent. [Citations.] “ ‘Whether there has been a “contest” within the meaning of a particular no-contest clause depends upon the circumstances of the particular case and the language used.’ [Citations.] ‘[T]he answer cannot be sought in a vacuum, but must be gleaned from a consideration of the purposes that the [testator] sought to attain by the provisions of [his] will.’ [Citation.] Therefore, even though a no contest clause is strictly construed to avoid forfeiture, it is the testator’s intentions that control, and a court ‘must not rewrite the [testator’s] will in such a way as to immunize legal proceedings plainly intended to frustrate [the testator’s] unequivocally expressed intent from the reach of the no-contest clause.’” (Fn. omitted.)”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“it is the testator's intentions that control, and a court `must not rewrite the [testator's] will in such a way as to immunize legal proceedings plainly intended to frustrate [the testator's] unequivocally expressed intent from the reach of the no-contest clause.' [Citation.]”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“No contest clauses are valid in California and are favored by the public policies of discouraging litigation and giving effect to the purposes expressed by the testator.”
3 later decisions 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.