Darwin v. Ganger’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 30 state decisions

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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The father of an illegitimate child, by publicly acknowledging it as his own, receiving it as such, with the consent of his wife, if he is married, into his family, and otherwise treating it as if it were a legitimate child, thereby adopts it as such; and such child is thereupon deemed for all purposes legitimate from the time of its birth.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 237 Cal. App. 2d 75 - Guardianship of Truschke · 59 Cal. App. 3d 784 - Jackson v. Wallace

2. ““If a man has no wife, he can legitimate his offspring by a course of conduct which the community could consider a public acknowledgment that he was the father of the child, (Estate of Gird, 157 Cal. 534, 542-543 [ 108 P. 499 , 137 Am.St.Rep. 131 ]) but the existence of such public acknowledgment by an unmarried man is a question to be decided on the circumstances of each case. (Estate of Baird, 193 Cal. 225, 274-279 [ 223 P. 974 ].) Where a man has no wife, he can publicly acknowledge his child notwithstanding the fact that he does not maintain a household into which the child is taken. (See Blythe v. Ayres, supra, 96 Cal. 532, 560, 592-593 [ 31 P. 915 ]; In re Jessup, 81 Cal. 408, 433-434 [ 21 P. 976 , 22 P. 742, 1028 , 6 L.R.A. 594 ].) If the man is unmarried the ‘family’ referred to in section 230 may consist only of the father, the mother, and the child. (Estate of Gird, supra, 157 Cal. 534, 540 [ 108 P. 499 ]; Serway v. Galentine, 75 Cal.App.2d 86, 90 [ 170 P.2d 32 ].) Thus, an unmarried man may legitimate his offspring by living with the mother and child for a short period during which he represented the mother as his wife and the child as his own. (Serway v. Galentine, supra, 75 Cal.App.2d 86, 90-91 [ 170 P.2d 32 ].)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 514 F. Supp. 995 - Gonzales v. Harris

3. “Thus, section 230, in providing that the father of an illegitimate child adopts his offspring by publicly acknowledging it as his own, uses the term “adopts” in the sense of “legitimates” and the effect of the father’s act “... is to change the status and capacity of an illegitimate child to the status and capacity of a child born in Lawful wedlock.-” In re Navarro, [ 175 P.2d 896 , 898 (1946) ]; Blythe v. Ayres, [ 31 P. 915 , 916 (Cal.1892) ]. The purpose of the code section is to permit the father to make reparation to the child by taking it into his home without the publicity which would be incidental to a judicial proceeding of adoption. As stated by the code commissioners, the publicity of a judicial proceeding (see [Cal.] Civil Code, § 221 et seq.) would brand the child with the very stigma from which a repentant father would desire to save it.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tyler v. Armstrong