Wilson v. Bass’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

22 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is argued in behalf of appellant that where an illegitimate child is acknowledged, under the provisions of § 3000, supra, he becomes a legitimate child with full right of inheritance, in the absence of other legitimate children or their descendants, and hence that appellant in this case inherited from the mother of his putative father to the same extent that he would have inherited had he been born in lawful wedlock. We do not believe that the statute is reasonably susceptible of such a construction. The statute by its terms seems plainly to distinguish between an illegitimate and a legitimate child, extending to the former a right to inherit from the putative father only, under certain circumstances, in case of the absence of legitimate children. Thus, the language is to the effect that the illegitimate child of any man dying intestate shall inherit his estate to the same extent as if such child had been legitimate, provided that the act shall not apply where the father of the illegitimate at his death had surviving a legitimate child. A statute seems to recognize the illegitimate as illegitimate after acknowledgment.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 110 Ind. App. 704 - Hall v. Fivecoat