McGriff v. McGriff’s Empirical Analysis
2004
Citation profile
19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently February 2025
19 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 Lawrence v. Texas · Sun Valley Shopping Center, Inc. v. Idaho Power Co. · Poesy v. Bunney · Roberts v. Roberts · Stockwell v. Stockwell
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“While the material, permanent and substantial change standard is a sound legal principle, care must be exercised in its application. The tendency is to search for some greatly altered circumstance in an attempt to pinpoint the change called for by the rule. Thus, the emphasis is placed on defining some change, and making that change appear, in itself, to be material, pei’manent and substantial. This focus is misleading. The important portion of the standard is that which relates the change in conditions to the best interest of the child. The changed circumstance standard was designed, as a matter of policy, to prevent continuous re-litigation of custody matters. That policy goal, however, is of secondary importance when compared to the best interest of the child, which is the controlling consideration in all custody proceedings. The court must look not only for changes of condition or circumstance which are material, permanent and substantial, but also must thoroughly explore the ramifications, vis-a-vis the best interest of the child, of any change which is evident. What may appear by itself to be a small and insignificant change in circumstances may have significant effects insofar as children are concerned. Care must also be taken to avoid ‘compartmentalizing’ consideration of a child’s best interest in successive attempts at custody modification. The best interest of a child, like its growth, is a matter of devel opment. An emerging pattern which is not apparent in a firs”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Evans v. Sayler“(a) The financial resources of the spouse seeking maintenance, including the marital property apportioned to said spouse, and said spouse’s ability to meet his or her needs independently; (b) The time necessary to acquire sufficient education and training to enable the spouse seeking maintenance to find employment; (c) The duration of the marriage; (d) The age and the physical and emotional condition of the spouse seeking maintenance; (e) The ability of the spouse from whom maintenance is sought to meet his or her needs while meeting those of the spouse seeking maintenance; (f) The tax consequences to each spouse; (g) The fault of either party.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The court may from time to time after considering the financial resources of both parties and the factors set forth in section 32-705, Idaho Code, order a party to pay a reasonable amount for the cost to the other party of maintaining or defending any proceeding under this act and for attorney’s fees, including sums for legal services rendered and costs incurred prior to the commencement of the proceeding or after entry of judgment. The court may order that the amount be paid directly to the attorney, who may enforce the order in his name.”
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.