Smith v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1881
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently December 1980
12 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
Relies on Town of Ligonier v. Ackerman · Lafayette & Indianapolis Railroad v. Pattison · Stedman v. Boone · Lima Township v. Jenks · Ferguson v. Hirsch
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is true that, ordinarily, even an illegal demand, paid without compulsion, and without fraud, and with full knowledge of the facts, or with full opportunity of obtaining such knowledge, can not be recovered back. [Citations omitted.] But such a rule is not applicable to legacies, or to money paid upon distribution by an executor. A legatee or a distributee may be required to give a bond, conditioned to refund his ratable proportion of the estate, if necessary. Decedents’ act, secs. 120 and 140. And the failure of the executor to take such a bond will not release the legatee or distributee from his liability to refund, when necessary, for the payment of debts, legacies or claims.””
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.