Lee v. Lee’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In deciding the propriety of a maintenance award and the sufficiency of a spouse’s property to provide for his or her reasonable needs, the trial court must consider marital property apportioned to a spouse, including the interest a spouse will earn from his or her share of the marital property. This ‘reflects the general principle that investment income must be considered, so that maintenance is not awarded for the purposes of building an estate or accumulation of capital.’ But, a spouse is not required to deplete his or her apportioned share of marital property before being entitled to maintenance. With respect to retirement and IRA accounts that have been apportioned as marital property, our Supreme Court has struck a balance between these two competing principles, and set forth the following guidelines: In sum, when calculating maintenance, a trial court must consider the income from retirement and IRA accounts to be apportioned as marital property. The trial court determines the amount of income — if any — imputed from these accounts based on the facts and circumstances of each case — including the cost to convert the account into cash, the age of the parties, them intent as to investment/consumption/retirement, the relative division of marital property and marital debts, and any equitable adjustment for reasonably certain taxes and penalties.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tarneja v. Tarneja