McDonald v. Shaw’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In the present case the devise was for the benefit of Ella Hare, and was in the language, ‘one-half of all of my estate,’ and the testator owned property which fitted the language. We find it nowhere announced that evidence is inadmissible to show the circumstances with which the testator was surrounded in order to explain the language which he used or to identify property which he intended to devise. But the description of the property cannot be entirely supplied by evidence dehors the will, where there is nothing in the language of the will itself to point out what property is meant; nor where the language does point out the property, and some is found which answers the description, can the description be enlarged by parol testimony. We are therefore of the opinion that the parol testimony was inadmissible for the purpose of showing that Mrs. Hare intended to convey the property which Ella Hare held by inheritance from her father, and that no case was made out for an election.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hardy v. Porter