Smith v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1859
Citation profile
2 district · 31 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2001 · most notably United States v. Robbins (1926), Stewart v. Stewart (1926)
2 district · 31 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 Beard v. Knox · Smalley v. Lawrence · In re Buchanan's Estate · Murphy v. Maskell
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In Beard v. Knox, 5 Cal. 252 , this court held that the common property could not be disposed of by the husband by will, so as to defeat the rights of the surviving wife; and the same doctrine is maintained in the Matter of Buchanan’s Estate, 8 Cal. 507 . In the first ease, the court said: ‘Our statute has done away with the common-law right of dower, and substituted in its place a half interest in the common property. This liberal provision was intended for the benefit of the wife, and the intention of so humane and beneficent a law should not be defeated, by adopting a rule of construction which would leave the future maintenance of herself and family entirely at the caprice of the husband.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.