Heyer v. Flaig’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 1 district · 375 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 398 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably 27 Cal. 3d 167 - Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (1980), 6 Cal. 3d 176 - Neel v. Magana, Olney, Levy, Cathcart & Gelfand (1971)
3 federal appellate · 1 district · 375 state decisions — followed in 29 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 56 Cal. 2d 583 - Lucas v. Hamm · Comunale v. Traders & General Insurance · 49 Cal. 2d 647 - Biakanja v. Irving · 69 Cal. 2d 850 - Connor v. Great Western Savings & Loan Ass'n · 20 Cal. 2d 713 - Wennerholm v. Stanford University School of Medicine
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 398 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"[w]hen an attorney undertakes to fulfill the testamentary instructions of his client, he realistically and in fact assumes a relationship not only with the client but also with the client's intended beneficiaries. The attorney's actions and omissions will affect the success of the client's testamentary scheme; and thus the possibility of thwarting the testator's wishes immediately becomes foreseeable. Equally foreseeable is the possibility of injury to an intended beneficiary. In some ways, the beneficiary's interests loom greater than those of the client. After the latter's death, a failure in his testamentary scheme works no practical effect except to deprive his intended beneficiaries of the intended bequests. Indeed, the executor of an estate has no standing to bring an action for the amount of the bequest against an attorney who negligently prepared the estate plan, since in the normal case the estate is not injured by such negligence except to the extent of the fees paid; only the beneficiaries suffer the real loss... . [U]nless the beneficiary could recover against the attorney in such a case, no one could do so and the social policy of preventing future harm would be frustrated." Heyer v. Flaig, 70 Cal.2d 223, 228 , 74 Cal. Rptr. 225, 228-29 , 449 P.2d 161, 164-65 (1969)”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage““Under the alleged facts of this case, we conclude that the limitations period starts from the date that the cause of action accrues; namely the incidence of the testatrix’ death when the negligent failure to perfect the requested testamentary scheme becomes irremedial and the impact of the injury occurs.” Heyer v. Flaig, (1969) 70 Cal.2d 223, 225 , 449 P.2d 161, 162 , 74 Cal.Rptr. 225, 226 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“resulting in a loss of $50,000 in the value of the daughters' inheritance. Judgment was entered for the defendant on the ground that the statute of limitations had run. In reversing, the Supreme Court of California discussed the duty of a lawyer in these circumstances to his immediate client and to the beneficiaries designated in the proposed will:”
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.