Hedtke v. Hedtke’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 417 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 424 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The income from property belonging to the husband during marriage is subject to a charge or burden for the maintenance of the wife and every minor child. The burden issues from the marital contract, and is incident to the husband’s relation to the family. It is unthinkable that the law should reward the husband, by lifting a charge from his income, for proving unfaithful to obligations on which rest the sanctity and welfare of the home. “While the court, in ordering the divorce, should not be unmindful of the benefits which the spouse not at fault would have derived from a continuance of the marriage, through the estate of the other spouse, its power is not limited to providing compensation for such benefits. Instead the court is to do complete equity as between the husband and wife and the children, having due regard to all obligations of the spouses and to the probable future necessities of all concerned. For the purpose of doing equity, the court may award all the personal property to either spouse, and may subject the income, rents, or revenues of all real estate, belonging to either or both of the spouses, to the support of either or both of them, or to the education and support of the children.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cooper v. Cooper

2. “Its language ought, to be given the meaning uniformly ascribed to it by this court, and that is, that the court pronouncing a decree of divorce is invested with wide discretion in disposing of any and all property of the parties, separate or community, and that its action, in the exercise of such discretion, should be corrected on appeal only where an abuse of discretion is shown in that the disposition made of some property is manifestly unjust and unfair.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Muns v. Muns