Wells v. Talham’s Empirical Analysis
1923
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently June 1978
10 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 Di Lorenzo v. . Di Lorenzo · Gould v. Gould · Smith v. Smith · Browning v. Browning · Varney v. Varney
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It will be seen from the decisions that this court early adopted the view, which has been adhered to, that, although marriage is purely a civil contract, false representations which would set aside ordinary civil contracts are not necessarily sufficient to void the contract of marriage. This policy depends not alone on the vital importance of the dissolution of the marriage relation to the parties directly concerned. It rests on the deep concern of the state that the integrity of the marriage contract shall, so far as possible, be preserved. This is shown by the careful provision of our statute regulating marriage and divorce, including the statute providing for the appointment of divorce counsel in each county to represent the public, whose duty it is to appear and investigate the merits in such actions for the prevention of collusion, fraud, and imposition upon the court.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Masters v. Masters““We are convinced that the general rule to be applied in actions of this kind, which was early adopted in Massachusetts and which has been followed in this state, may be said to be the rule which generally prevails in this country.” (Citing cases.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Such a fraud does not go to the essence of the contract. . . . The discovery by the party deceived might bring mental distress, but a divorce does not prevent entering into a new marriage relation or the performance of all its duties.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Zerk v. Zerk
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.