Hames v. Hames’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 64 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently September 2024 · most notably Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, Inc. v. Gill (1978), Scott v. General Iron & Welding Co. (1976)
3 federal appellate · 64 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 Vogel v. Sylvester · Covino v. Pfeffer · Hiss v. Hiss · Dennis v. Dennis · Davis v. Davis
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Our statutory scheme specifies no precise form for the celebration of marriage; nor does it explicitly require that the parties declare that they take one another as husband and wife. . . . No requirement is made concerning witnesses, but, like consent, the physical presence of the parties before an official is an implicit requirement to the performance of a marriage in this state. Compare, e.g., Mich. Comp. Laws 551-9; see Howery, `Marriage by Proxy and Other Informal Marriages', 13 Kan. City L.Rev. 48, 58; note, 55 Yale L.J. 735 , 738-48. Swift, in 1822, in discussing the predecessor statutes to our present 46-3, remarked: The law has not pointed out any mode in which marriages shall be celebrated, but has left it to the common custom and practice of the country. Any form of words which explicitly constitute a contract and engagement from the parties to each other, and published in the presence of, and by the officer appointed by the Statute, will be a valid marriage.' 1 Swift, Digest, p. 20.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In the eyes of the law, needless to say, a divorced pair could be but two single persons desirous of acquiring marital status. Thus, it is clear that no act whatsoever could have revested legal status in the previously terminated marriage.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“A clergyman in the administration of marriage is a public civil officer, and in relation to this subject, is not at all distinguished from a judge . . . or a justice of the peace, in the performance of the same duty.”
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.