Masters v. Masters’s Empirical Analysis
1961
Citation profile
15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently May 2006
15 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 Di Lorenzo v. . Di Lorenzo · Varney v. Varney · Winner v. Winner · Brandt v. Brandt · Wells v. Talham
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The argument that the parties stand in pari delicto was advanced by the defendant wife in Winner v. Winner, supra, and was rejected by this court. With respect to such contention the opinion pointed out that such intercourse constituted a mere misdemeanor. We are of the opinion that the punishment inflicted by denying an annulment in cases of this kind is out of all proportion to the offense committed. In so holding, we do not condone in the least the plaintiff’s infraction of the moral code. Furthermore, by refusing an annulment the plaintiff would not be punished for the illicit intercourse, but rather for his laudable conduct in seeking to rectify a wrong he believed would result unless he did marry the defendant. There may be aggravated situations in which the doctrine of in pari delicto ought to be applied, such as was present in Gondouin v. Gondouin, 1910, 14 Cal.App. 285 , 111 P. 756 , in which the man induced the woman to submit to intercourse by his promise to marry her. This is not such a case. “Whether to apply the doctrine of in pari delicto poses a question of public policy. The lone justification which we can perceive for here invoking such doctrine is that it might act as a future deterrent to unmarried persons engaging in illicit intercourse. If the thought of the unpleasant consequences, which are likely to befall the male participant should pregnancy result, or the fear of a criminal prosecution for fornication, are insufficient to deter him, we doubt very ”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Parks v. Parks““We deem the character of such false representations ° * ° to be material as a matter of law, if they in fact caused the marriage to be entered into under circumstances that no marriage would have taken place absent such false representation.” 13 Wis. 2d 332, 341 , 108 N.W.2d 674, 679 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.