Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance v. Schaefer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

81 federal appellate · 18 district · 140 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 298 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““But precisely what interest is necessary, in order to take a policy out of the category of mere wager, lias been the subject, of much discussion. In marine and fire insurance the difficulty is not so great, because there insur anee is considered as strictly an indemnity. But in life insurance the loss can seldom be measured by pecuniary values. Still, an interest of some sort in the insured life must exist. A man cannot take out insurance on the life of a total stranger, nor on that of one who is not so connected with him as to make the continuance of the life a matter of some real interest to him. It is well settled that a man has an insurable interest in his own life, and in that of his wife and children; a woman in the life of her husband; and a creditor in the life of his debtor. Indeed, it may be said generally that any reasonable expectation of pecuniary benefit or advantage from the continued iife of another^ creates an insurable interest in such life, and there is no doubt that a man may effect an insurance on his own life for the benefit of a relative or friend; or two or more persons, on their joint lives, for the benefit of the survivor or survivors. The old tontines were based substantially on' this principle, and their validity has never been called in question. The essential thing is that the policy shall be obtained in good faith, and not for the purpose of speculating upon the hazard of a life in which the insured has no interest.””

   14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kentucky Life & Acc. Ins. v. Hamilton · Manhattan Life Insurance v. Hennessy

2. ““.A policy of life insurance, originally valid, does not cease to be so by the cessation of the assured party’s interest in the life insured, unless such be the necessary effect of the provisions of the instrument itself. So held, where, subsequently to effecting an insurance by husband and wife, upon their joint lives, payable to the survivor upon the death of either, they were divorced a vinculo matrimonii, and she, having thereafter paid the premiums to the time of his death, brought suit on the policy. ’ ’”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mahar v. Mahar · Sinclair Refining Co. v. Long

3. ““ How tbe competency of parties as witnesses in the federal courts depends on the act of congress in that behalf passed in 1864, amended in 1865, and codified in the Revised Statutes, § 858. It is not derived from the statute of Ohio, and is not subject to the conditions and qualifications imposed thereby. The only qualifications which congress deemed necessary are expressed in the act of congress; and the admission in evidence of previous communications to counsel is not one of them.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Liggett v. Glenn · Randall v. Venable