Wilson v. Wilson’s Empirical Analysis
1917
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently May 2011 · most notably Harrington v. Harrington (1958), In Re Wray's Estate (1933)
26 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 Patterson v. Gaines · Goss v. Froman · Sergent v. North Cumberland. Mfg. Co. · Board of Education v. City of Winchester · Vanover v. Steele
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]his ancient rule has been so far relaxed that in modern times this presumption may be overcome by showing that the husband had no opportunity for intercourse, and the jury, from all the facts, are to infer whether intercourse did, or did not, take place. 5 Cyc. 627. Under the majority of the cases, and which we think is the sounder rule, where access is either admitted or the opportunity for it is reasonably certain from the evidence, the presumption of legitimacy will prevail, unless the jury are convinced that it was impossible for the husband to have been the father of the child.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. J.A.S. v. Bushelman
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.