Foster v. Sharpe’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently October 1998
16 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 Frazier v. Frazier · 97 So. 2d 18 - State Ex Rel. Sparks v. Reeves · 95 So. 2d 25 - Grant v. Corbitt · Hernandez v. Thomas · Marshall v. Reams
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right of the parents to the custody, care and upbringing of their children is one of the most basic rights of our civilization. The emphasis upon the importance of the home unit in which children are brought up by their natural parents is one of the great humanizations of western civilization as contrasted with the ideologies of some nations where family life is not accorded primary consideration.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Inasmuch as it conclusively appears that Elaine's [the minor child's] mother is a fit and proper person to have the custody of her child and that such custody is consistent with the welfare of the child, it is necessary to reverse the order awarding custody of the child to the respondents. In this connection it should be noted that a finding by the trial judge that `it is in the best interest' of the child that she remain with her aunt and uncle is not equivalent to a finding that the ultimate welfare of the child requires that she be with the aunt and uncle. It is often true that parents may not be able to provide for their children as fully and completely as another may be able to provide. However, no parent could agree with a law which would demand that a parent must relinquish his or her right of custody to another person on the basis of superior material advantages."”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Heffernan v. Goldman“basic proposition that a parent has a natural God-given legal right to enjoy the custody, fellowship and companionship of his offspring”
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.