Stell v. Salters’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The tendency of juries to set aside wills which exclude blood relatives from participation in the distribution of the estate of the testator is well known to the bench and bar. Huffnagle v. Pauley (Mo.Sup.) 219 S.W. 373 ; McCannon v. McCannon, Tex.Civ.App., 2 S.W.2d 942 . “Juries, in such cases, are disposed'to think they are better qualified than the testator to make a proper disposition of the estate and make ■ findings accordingly. “In this case the will operated to divert the bulk of Finley’s estate from Finley’s blood relatives to those of Mrs. Finley. A man or woman in this state has the absolute right to dispose of their property by will as they see fit. Stolle v. Kanetzky, Tex.Civ.App., 220 S.W. 557 . Such right is not to be defeated by adverse findings óf juries upon the issue of testamentary capacity based upon evidence which does not fairly support such findings. * * * “Numerous nonexpert witnesses for con-testee testified the testator was of "sound mind. A number of witnesses testified in behalf of contestants to trivial matters. No delusions or any peculiarities were shown from which mental unsoundness could be reasonably inferred. Contestants’ witnesses, Frank Farmer, Ed. Buford and wife, testified that in their opinion Finley was of unsound mind, but the facts upon which they based such conclusions were,. in our opinion, wholly insufficient to support the same. There was also evidence that Finley suffered from a physical ailment, but there is nothing to sugges”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bell v. Bell