89 Wash. 2d 511 - Francis v. Francis’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently October 2013 · most notably 95 Wash. 2d 237 - deElche v. Jacobsen (1980), 102 Wash. 2d 652 - AETNA LIFE INSURANCE v. Wadsworth (1984)
7 federal appellate · 17 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 Occidental Life Insurance v. Powers · Travelers Insurance v. Fancher · 22 Wash. 2d 212 - Towey v. Seattle-First National Bank · Sieroty v. Silver · Pacific Mutual Life Insurance v. Cleverdon
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This statute (Wash.Rev.Code § 26.16.030) does not purport to govern the disposition of insurance proceeds. That question is expressly dealt with in RCW 48.18.440.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Thus, the evil of the case was not that it gave the entire proceeds to the surviving spouse, contrary to the intent of the insured, but that it denied to the insured the right to designate the beneficiary of one-half of the proceeds, being the half attributable to his interest in the policy as community property. We know of no sound reason of public policy which demands such a result. On the contrary the fundamental principles of community property law dictate that each spouse should upon his or her death have the right to dispose of his or her one-half interest in the policy as community property.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The designation of an insurance beneficiary is quasi-testamentary in nature, since the beneficiary has only an inchoate right prior to the death of the insured, at least where the insured retains the right to change the beneficiary.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Estrada v. McNulty
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.