Mullen v. Mullen’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 97 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 107 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2006 · most notably Ford v. Ford (1962), Malpass v. Morgan (1972)
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 97 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 Eaton v. Davis · Stringfellow v. Somerville · Darnell v. Barker · Martin v. Martin · Hulcher v. Hulcher
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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'(T)he rule (is) that the welfare of the infant is the primary, paramount, and controlling consideration of the court in all controversies between parents over the custody of their minor children. All other matters are subordinate.'”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Moyer v. Moyer · Oehl v. Oehl““Even though the defendant has been found to be at fault in deserting her husband, her fault was not based on any moral delinquency. She has committed no fault against the child. The custody of the child is not to be ordered with a view of heaping punishment upon the defendant by reason of her responsibility for the severance of the marriage ties, where the substantial evidence shows that the mother is a fit person to share the custody.” 188 Va. at 272 , 49 S.E.2d at 355 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Moyer v. Moyer · Andrews v. Geyer
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.