181 W. Va. 254 - Raley v. Raley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When a court is required to divide vested pension rights that have not yet matured as an incident to the equitable distribution of marital property at divorce, the court should be guided in the selection of a method of division by the desirability of disentangling parties from one another as quickly and cleanly as possible. Consequently, a court should look to the following methods of dividing pension rights in this descending order of preference unless peculiar facts and circumstances dictate otherwise: (1) lump sum payment through a cash settlement or off-set from other available marital assets; (2) payment over time of the present value of the pension rights at the time of divorce to the non-working spouse; (3) a court order requiring that the non-working spouse share in the benefits on a proportional basis when and if they mature. 5”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 182 W. Va. 714 - Langdon v. Langdon

2. “Because the Court in Cross v. Cross indicated that general contributions, rather than economic contributions, were to be the basis for a distribution, it deviated from the principles of distribution set forth in Raley v. Raley, supra [Raley 1]. The deviation was based upon an extensive consideration of the equities involved in the distribution of investment accounts as well as upon legal principles as they evolved in other jurisdictions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Raley v. Raley

3. “Although W.Va.Code, 48-2-1 [1984] and W.Va. Code, 48-2-32 [1984] did not specifically mention pension plans as marital property available for equitable distribution, these two Code sections were broad enough to encompass pension plans.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 183 W. Va. 491 - Tallman v. Tallman