176 W. Va. 707 - Starcher v. Crabtree’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 2001
8 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 Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. · United States v. Raddatz · Mathews v. Weber · 161 W. Va. 154 - Waite v. Civil Service Commission · 160 W. Va. 172 - State Ex Rel . Harris v. Calendine
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Before West Virginia was a state, the power to grant divorces resided in the Virginia legislature by special enactment. The legislature, however, lost its power to grant divorces when the West Virginia Constitution was ratified. Article 6, Section 39 prohibits the legislature from granting divorces, but states that “the legislature shall provide, by general laws, for (divorces).” Thus, while the legislature lost the power to grant divorces, it still retained many powers, including the power to choose the forum for divorce. Under the 1872 West Virginia constitution, the legislature could either allow the circuit courts to handle divorces under Article 8, § 12 or form a limited court for that purpose under Article 8, § 19. The legisla- ture allowed both to have concurrent jurisdiction. See W.Va.Code § 48-2-5 (1980). The courts, recognizing the legislature’s ability to change forums, acknowledged that neither law courts nor equity courts had the inherent power to dissolve marriages and the authority of a court to decree a divorce was purely statutory. See e.g., syl. pt. 1, State ex ret. Cecil v. Knapp, 143 W.Va. 896 , 105 S.E.2d 569 (1958). Courts of limited jurisdiction, however, were abolished by the Judicial Reorganization Amendment of 1974 to the West Virginia Constitution. See W.Va. Const. Art. 8, § 5. The amendment eliminated the legislature’s power to change the jurisdiction of divorce cases and constitutionally placed divorce cases in the circuit court. See Patterson v. ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“(i) A circuit court or the chief judge thereof shall refer to the master the following matters for hearing to be conducted pursuant to section two of this article: (3) All motions for pendente lite relief affecting child custody, visitation, child support or spousal support filed on or after the first day of November, one thousand nine hundred eighty-six, wherein either party has requested such referral or the court on its own motion in individual cases or by general order has referred such motions to the master: Provided, That if the circuit court determines, in its discretion, that the pleadings raise substantial issues concerning the identification of separate property or the. division of marital property which may have a bearing on an award of support, the court may decline to refer a motion for support pendente lite to the family law masterf.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[i]t is not the function of this Court ... to redraft acts of the legislature. That is a legislative function, which this Court is forbidden from exercising.”
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.