Powell v. Powell’s Empirical Analysis
1877
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently October 1986
20 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Wightman v. Wightman · Rawdon v. Rawdon
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Sec. 648 of the Code (Gen. Stat. p. 759) does not in any manner restrict the plaintiff from prosecuting or instituting her action to annul a void marriage. Said section applies only to incapables, who are unable to contract marriage from want of age, or understanding. Independently of the provisions relating to divorce, the district court has full jurisdiction to afford the plaintiff requisite relief. If she wishes no judicial determination of the question, and the defendant was insane at the time of the marriage, and has had no lucid intervals since, she may treat such marriage as wholly void.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In Re Reeves' Estate“The plaintiff is as free from the defendant as if the court below had pronounced a decree of nullity, as no judgment was necessary to restore the parties to their original rights. The fitness and propriety of a judicial decision pronouncing the nullity of such a marriage, is supported, because conducive to good order and decorum, and to the peace and conscience of the party seeking it. Weightman [Wightman] v. Weightman [Wightman], 4 Johns.Ch. [N.Y.] 343; Rawdon v. Rawdon, 28 Ala. 565 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In Re Reeves' Estate““When the legislature enacted that a divorce might be granted for impotency, it was intended that the impotence must have existed at the time of the marriage. If a person should become impotent after marriage, the marriage is good, and no ground of divorce exists therefor. Such is the universal doctrine.” (p. 378.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Bunger v. Bunger
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.