Lefkoff v. Sicro’s Empirical Analysis
1939
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 80 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 95 later decisions — most recently October 2016 · most notably Roberts v. Roberts (1943), Toler v. Goodin (1946)
8 federal appellate · 80 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 Grigsby v. Reib · Sharon v. Sharon · Central of Georgia Railway Co. v. State · Drawdy v. Hesters · Hulett v. Carey
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 95 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The conclusions to be deduced from the whole matter are these: That marriage is founded in the law of nature, and is anterior to all human law; that in society it is a civil contract; that if the contract is per verba in praesenti — that is, I take you to be my wife, and I take you to be my husband — though it be not consummated by cohabitation, or if it be made per verba de futuro, and be consummated, it amounts to a valid marriage, in the absence of all municipal regulations to the contrary; and that notwithstanding there be statutes directing a license to issue, as in this State, and inflicting a penalty on any minister or magistrate who shall unite the parties in wedlock, without such license, yet, in the absence of any positive enactment declaring that all marriages not celebrated in the prescribed form shall be void, a marriage deliberately and intentionally entered into by the parties, who are able to contract according to the rules of the common law, without conforming to the enactment, is still a valid marriage.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Marriage, being a contract, is of course consensual, for it is of the essence of all contracts to be constituted by the consent of both parties”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Peacock v. Peacock“Marriage being a civil contract, it is not necessary that it be solemnized by a person in holy orders, and in facie ecclesia,”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Peacock v. Peacock
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.