Ruggles v. Ruggles’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 67 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 73 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Ottino v. Ottino (2001), Herrera v. Herrera (1999)
1 federal appellate · 67 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
Applies 10 U.S.C. § 1408 · 26 U.S.C. § 401 (Self-Employed Individuals Tax Retirement Act of 1962) · 29 U.S.C. § 1056 (§ 206 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974)
Relies on McCarty v. McCarty · 15 Cal. 3d 838 - In Re Marriage of Brown · 29 Cal. 3d 418 - In Re Marriage of Gillmore · C.R. Anthony Co. v. Loretto Mall Partners · Beals ex rel. Walker v. Ares
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 73 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We think the proper rule is that the court must consider all the circumstances and evaluate the probability that the party who has a contingent right to a pension will eventually enjoy that pension. The length of time remaining before eligibility matures is a factor for the court to consider; also, the other options open to the person and the likelihood that he may, in the exercise of a reasonable judgment, decide to pursue some other career and abandon his pension rights. Also, the court must take account of the community’s investment in the pension system and determine whether, in the event the party entitled to the pension decides to abandon his rights, the community’s contribution should nevertheless be considered an asset under his control and be balanced against other assets awarded to the other party. There can be no set rule for determining every case and as in all other cases of property distribution, the trial court must exercise a wise and sound discretion.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“determining whether the non[-]employee spouse may share in increases in the amount of the pension due to post[-]divorce increases in the employee[-]spouse's salary, resulting either from ordinary promotions and cost of living increases or from the employee's increased effort and achievement at work.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Garcia v. Garcia“a voluntary property settlement between divorcing spouses, dividing their community property as they see fit, is sacrosanct and cannot be upset by the court granting the divorce, absent fraud, duress, mistake, breach of fiduciary duty, or other similar equitable ground for invalidating an agreement.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Durham v. Gordon
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.