Forbes v. Snyder’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. ““Defendants were offered as witnesses generally as to matters anterior to the death of Snyder, and were held incompetent. This ruling we hold to be correct. In this action the adverse party sues as administratrix, and in such case a party or person interested is expressly excepted from the operation of the statute allowing parties to testify on their own motion in their own behalf. But it is insisted that this clause is to be confined to cases wherein the result of the suit must be to increase or diminish the estate of the deceased person, and that the damages in this case do not in any proper sense constitute a part of the estate of deceased, — are not assets for the payment of debts or for distribution to heirs or devisees. It is true these damages are not strictly any part of the estate, but they constitute a fund cast upon his next of kin by means of his death. They surely come within the letter of the statute, and, in our judgment, fall within its spirit. The tongue of Snyder is silent as to the events which led to his death. The same reasons which justify the limitation of the general statute so as to silence adverse parties where the effect of the proceeding is to increase or decrease the estate, seem equally cogent in a case like the present.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 253 Ill. App. 444 - Ogden v. Keck