Gallant v. Gallant’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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “) appeals from a judgment of the Elmore Circuit Court (”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Gallant v. Gallant · Gallant v. Gallant

2. ““The doctrine of res judicata provides that a final judgment entered by a court of competent jurisdiction' binds the parties from relitigating the issues decided therein. See Hughes v. Martin, 533 So.2d 188 (Ala.1988). Applied strictly, that doctrine would prevent repeated .litigation over the custody of a child; however, as early as 1858, our supreme court recognized that, because of the shifting nature of the needs of a growing child, a court of equity should be allowed to redetermine custody in appropriate cases. See Cornelius v. Cornelius, 31 Ala. 479 (1858). In keeping with the rationale behind the doctrine of res judi-cata, the supreme court decided that, in order to prevent ‘oft-repeated, harassing litigation over the custody of infants,’ a final child-custody determination, like any other judgment, could not be reopened for reconsideration of the correctness of the judgment. Sparkman v. Sparkman, 217 Ala. 41, 43 , 114 So. 580, 581 (1927). It further held, however, that, if a party could satisfactorily prove that circumstances had changed in a significant way since the entry of the earlier judgment, the doctrine of res judicata would not preclude a new determination of child custody based on those changed circumstances. See Pearce v. Pearce, 136 Ala. 188, 190 , 33 So. 883 , 884 (1903). Hence, the law became that a prior custody judgment could be modified based only on a .material change of circumstances. See Wren v. Stutts, 258 Ala. 421, 422 , 63 So.2d 370, 371 (1953).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. K.U. v. J.C.

3. “settle[d] a dispute between persons with arguably equal constitutional rights using neutral factors,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 256 So. 3d 1201 - Moore v. Griffin