Williams v. Bricker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 26 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The union of two estates in one person does not necessarily result in a merger. The merging of two estates by their union in a single individual is purely a matter of theory. The two estates are conceived as remaining separate wherever that view is to the advantage of their holder. There is the more reason that they should be kept apart when their merger would operate to the prejudice of one who is not a party to the transaction. Williams v. Bricker, 83 Kan. 53 ( 109 Pac. 998 , 30 L. R. A. (N. S.) 343, 346). “At law, the rule is that, whenever a greater estate and a lesser coincide in the same person without any intermediate estate, the lesser is merged. “In equity, the rules of law as to mérger are not followed, and the doctrine of merger is not favored. Equity will prevent or permit a merger as will best subserve the purposes of justice and the actual and just intent of the parties. Wherever a mérger would operate inequitably, it will be prevented. * * * In equity, the merger will be prevented whenever necessary to protect the rights of an innocent third party, or of the person in whom the estates meet. 16 Cyc. 665, 668. “In equity the legal rule of merger is not regarded as inflexible, and the question whether the doctrine of merger will be applied or not is determined by the intention of the party in whom the estates unite, provided that his intention shall not be enforced to perpetrate fraud or wrong. * * * The equitable doctrine has superseded the legal doctrine almost”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lunt v. Van Gorden

2. ““The will of Louis Wiltberger clearly expressed the purpose that his widow should take a life estate in the real property in question, that at her death it should pass to such of his four children as should then be living and to the children of any of the four who had died, the grandchildren to take collectively the shares that would have gone to their respective parents. . . . When the deed was made the widow had a life estate, the four children a vested remainder (subject to be devested by their dying before the life estate ended), and the children of these children (there were at least two of them then in being), a contingent remainder.” (P- 57.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bullock v. Wiltberger

3. ““Merger takes place when a greater and a less estate come together in the same person, and when there is no reason for their longer existence as separate estates. The doctrine has its foundation in the convenience of the parties interested, and therefore whenever the rights of strangers, not parties to the act that would otherwise work an extinguishment of the particular estate, require it, the two estates will still have a separate continuance in contemplation of law.” (p. 263.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bullock v. Wiltberger