Wolff v. Wolff’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
58 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions — most recently November 2025 · most notably Neville v. Neville (2003), 211 Ill. 2d 437 - In Re Marriage of Crook (2004)
58 state decisions — followed in 16 states
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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 407 (§ 207 of the Social Security Act of 1935)
Relies on Flemming v. Nestor · Hisquierdo v. Hisquierdo · Old Aztec Mine, Inc. v. Brown · Matter of Marriage of Swan and Swan · Olson v. Olson
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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This court's rationale for not substituting its own judgment for that of the district court, absent an abuse of discretion, is that the district court has a better opportunity to observe parties and evaluate the situation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““My concern is that the transfer/assignment prohibition [of the Act] has been unduly extended by state courts as in Olson and Swan to prohibit any consideration of a party’s social security benefits when a state court is dividing property in a divorce. I do not find this mandated by federal law or United States Supreme Court decision. Although a dollar[-]for[-]dollar offset of anticipated social security benefits against a spouse’s award would violate federal law, I find no mandate that would preclude a court, in its equitable determinations, from merely considering the fact that one spouse is likely to receive federal retirement benefits. The prohibition of any consideration of social security benefits accrued by one party during marriage usually creates an inequity in the division of property between divorcing parties. When one party has a state or private pension and the other person has accrued social security benefits, the person with a state or private pension fares poorly in property division when compared to the other party.” Wolff, 112 Nev. at 1364 , 929 P.2d at 922 (Rose, J, dissenting).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[B]efore the appellate court will SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA 3 1,0 I ,•17i1 5_ a interfere with the trial judge's . . . alimony award, it must appear on the entire record in the case that the discretion of the trial judge has been abused.”
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.