83 Md. App. 649 - Fields v. Mersack’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently July 2020
8 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 Choi v. State · Universal Aluminum Corp. v. Port City Glass, Inc. · In Re the Estate of Randall · In Re: Graham Estate · Estate of Jones
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] trial judge presented with a petition for costs and attorney’s fees filed by a personal representative, whom a jury has found has exerted undue influence on the decedent, must determine, nevertheless, whether the personal representative acted in good faith and with just cause in defending the will. That determination must be made in light of the totality of the circumstances, including the jury’s finding, and by weighing all the evidence. The trial judge may not import bad faith from the jury’s finding alone.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[I]t is a factual question whether a personal representative has acted in good faith and with just cause in defending or prosecuting a caveat proceeding. Because that issue is neither presented to nor decided by the jury in a caveat proceeding, that factual determination must be made by the trial judge, to whom the issue of the source of the payment of the attorney’s fees is presented. [25]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Implicit in appellant’s position is that a jury finding of undue influence does not preclude, as a matter of law, payment of a personal representative’s expenses out of the estate. Appellee’s position is explicit in its assertion that such a finding does preclude, as a matter of law, payment of such expenses from the estate. No Maryland court has had an occasion to address this point.”
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.