Phillips v. Phillips’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When either of the parties to a marriage is incapable from want of age or understanding of consenting to any marriage, or is incapable of entering into the marriage state due to physical causes, or when the consent of either party shall have been obtained by force or fraud, the marriage shall be void from the time its nullity shall be declared by a court of competent jurisdiction.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stuhr v. Oliver · Porter v. Arkansas Department of Health & Human Services

2. “‘ ‘ ‘ Every intendment of the law is in favor of matrimony. When a marriage has been shown in evidence, whether regular or irregular, and whatever the form of the proof, the law raises a strong presumption of its legality; not only casting the burden of the proof on the party objecting, but requiring him throughout, and in every particular, plainly to make the fact appear, against the constant pressure of this presumption, that it is illegal and void. So that it cannot he applied like ordinary questions of fact, which are independent of this sort of presumption.’ ””

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

3. “*** Marriage was instituted for the good of society, and the marital relation is the foundation of all forms of government. For that reason the state has an interest in every divorce suit, and the marital relation, once established, continues until the marriage contract is dissolved upon some ground prescribed by statute. ***”

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