136 Cal. App. 2d 40 - In Re Brown’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently February 1998
10 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 In Re McCarty · 40 Cal. 2d 516 - Dimon v. Dimon · 62 Cal. App. 2d 559 - Groves v. Superior Court · Ex parte Todd · 9 Cal. 2d 379 - Mery v. Superior Court
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Cases holding that a husband who has no money but has the ability to work may be ordered to pay support money to his wife ( Dimon v. Dimon [(1953)] 40 Cal.2d 516 [ 254 P.2d 528 ]) are not in point. Also inapplicable is the rule that one may be punished for contempt if he wilfully and voluntarily puts it out of his power to comply with a court mandate. Our courts have never applied the rule to the case of a husband who has no money, but having ability to obtain employment fails or refuses to do so. [¶] As we have stated, the affidavit did not allege that petitioner gave up his employment voluntarily or refused to accept employment that was available.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“If ability to work in remunerative employment was, in a pertinent legal sense, ability to comply with the mandate of the judgment, and if it had been alleged that petitioner wilfully refused to work for the express purpose of avoiding compliance with his obligations, the affidavit would have been sufficient. But mere ability to work is not the same as ability to pay.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“This order was clearly in excess of the power of the court, which cannot compel a man to seek employment in order to earn money to pay alimony, and punish him for his failure to do so.”
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.