Emerson v. Emerson’s Empirical Analysis
1913
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 105 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 118 later decisions — most recently November 2009 · most notably North v. North (1936), Dickey v. Dickey (1928)
7 federal appellate · 105 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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 Southworth v. Treadwell · Stillman v. Stillman · McCaddin v. McCaddin · Wallace v. Wallace · Wallingsford v. Wallingsford
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 118 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The law has generally regarded all agreements, made during the pending of the suit for divorce, as void, as being against public policy. Too easy is it for the parties to come to such an arrangement on property division as to amount to collusion on the question of the divorce itself. The practice is common, nevertheless, for Courts to incorporate in their decrees provisions as to alimony which have been agreed to by the parties. The Court, however, must be satisfied that the agreement is not the result of collusion on the main point of the divorce. The practice is to submit the agreement to the Court, and if the Court is satisfied that it is a proper settlement, it will receive the sanction of a decree.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Gordon v. Gordon““It is conceded on the part of the appellant, that upon good cause shown of inability on the part of the husband to pay the alimony, the court might order a suspension of payment, and would not, or rather should not, punish him as for contempt of court. But it seems to us that this concession virtually concedes the whole case. If the decree for the amount of alimony is of the rigid, inflexible, and unchangeable character claimed for it in the bill of review now before us, it is not apparent how it can be suspended any more than it can be modified by a reduction of the amount.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Ruge v. Ruge“"Our understanding of alimony and its incidents has been borrowed from the decisions of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and this Court has, on several occasions, said that in divorce cases the Courts of Equity of this State do not sit in the exercise of their general equitable jurisdiction, but as a Divorce Court, and are governed by the rules and principles established in the Ecclesiastical Courts of England, so far as they are consistent with the Code.” (Emphasis supplied.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.