Tonti v. Chadwick’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently January 1998 · most notably Newburgh v. Arrigo (1982), Staedler v. Staedler (1951)
3 federal appellate · 43 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 Krause v. Krause · Caldwell v. Caldwell · Keller v. Linsenmyer · Rooney v. Rooney · Sparks v. Ross
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Having tired of his bargain, the luster of which had been temporarily dimmed by petty arguments, and finding no other way out . . . attempts an annulment of the marriage. So far as I am concerned, although the petition does not so state, his main object in this litigation is to avoid his financial obligation to support and maintain the respondent. The majority opinion denies his right to annul the marriage on the unclean hands doctrine. As a result, the appellant, although estopped from annulling the marriage, is nevertheless permitted to escape the obligation of support and maintenance. It is a peculiar and strange kind of equity which by its decree prohibits an attack upon the contract itself but abnegates the pecuniary obligation which flows from it. . . . Equity, founded as it is upon good conscience, should not grant relief to a complainant either directly or indirectly in any attempt which it deems unconscionable. The appellant’s effort here to relieve himself of the obligation to support which he voluntarily assumed and continued, in my judgment, is unconscionable and the relief which he asks for should not be granted either in his request by way of annulment or by way of defense to the counterclaim for support by the wife.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Hodge v. Hodge“Where one with full knowledge of the factual situation goes through a marriage ceremony with a woman and cohabits with her for a period of time, he cannot thereafter obtain a decree of annulment on the basis that his spouse at the time of the ceremony was the lawful wife of another and at the time of her second marriage a divorce decree previously obtained was invalid. Keller v. Linsenmyer, 101 N.J. Eq. 664 ( Ch. 1927). No one can successfully annul a marriage when entered into with knowledge that either party had a former spouse living. Ignorance of the essential facts is a prerequisite of relief. Tyll v. Keller, 94 N.J. Eq. 426 ( E. & A. 1923); Smith v. Hrzich ( Sup. Ct. 1948) 1 N.J. 1 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.