Evans v. Taylor’s Empirical Analysis
1939
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently August 1973 · most notably Sawyer v. Bezner (1947), Oldham v. Oldham (1939)
25 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 Goldsmith v. Salkey · Wilson v. Elliott · Goldsmith v. Salkey · Adams v. Gillis
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In order to warrant a change or modification of the order the true test seems to be that the proof must show the ‘situation and character of the respective parties have so changed as to render it to the [best] interest of the infant’ that the former order be set aside or modified. Wilson v. Elliott, 96 Tex. 472 , 73 S.W. 946, 947 , 97 Am.St.Rep. 928 .””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is no longer an open question in American jurisprudence that a child custody judgment is res judicata only of what was then before the court, and that far only is protected by the `full faith and credit' clause of the Federal Constitution, article 4, § 1. A subsequent material change of conditions brings into being a new and independent cause of action. The original custody judgment may be absolute and final in form. In reality, it is temporary and conditional. Whether expressed or not, the law writes into each of such judgments, in substance, that its finality ends when and if conditions affecting the welfare of the child have materially changed. So that it may be said that a petition alleging such facts is in no sense an attack upon such former judgment, but is an independent suit, having to do with a present status, and challenging the jurisdiction of a proper court to declare such status upon the basis of the then welfare of the child. That welfare is the concern of sovereignty, as the guardian of persons under disability, and in a very real sense the state is interested in the result, though not a nominal party. That concern does not end with a judgment, but is a continuing one until such child becomes sui juris.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Oldham v. Oldham
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.