Williams v. Ketchum’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It has been said that the law presumes that every child in a Christian country is prima facie the offspring of a lawful rather than of a meretricious union of parents, and this is true in one sense. Filiation being established, legitimacy is presumed. However, where the right to inheritance is claimed, the burden is on the claimant to establish the fact that he is a legitimate heir, [Our emphasis] though, after proof of filiation, he will receive the benefits of the presumption of legitimacy.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bell v. Bell