McGaugh v. McGaugh’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “One is an independent contract, usually in writing, by which the husband, in contemplation of the divorce, binds himself to pay a fixed amount or fixed installments for his wife’s support. Even though such a contract is approved by the chancellor and incorporated in the decree, as in the Bacchus [Bacchus v. Bacchus, 216 Ark. 802 , 227 S.W.2d 439 (1950)] case, it does not merge into the court’s award of alimony, and consequently, as we pointed out in that opinion, the wife has a remedy at law on the contract in the event the chancellor has reason not to enforce his decretal award by contempt proceedings. The second type of agreement is that by which the parties, without making a contract that is meant to confer upon the wife an independent cause of action, merely agree upon “the amount the court by its decree should fix as alimony.” Pryor v. Pryor, 88 Ark. 302 , 114 S.W. 700 , 129 Am. St. Rep. 102 , which construed an agreement of the first type, and Holmes v. Holmes, 186 Ark. 251 , 53 S.W.2d 226 , involving an agreement of the second type. See also 3 Ark. L. Rev. 98 . A contract of the latter character is usually less formal than an independent property settlement; it may be intended merely as a means of dispensing with proof upon an issue not in dispute, and by its nature it merges in the divorce decree. In the Holmes case we held that the second type of contract does not prevent the court from later modifying its decree.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 53 Ark. App. 22 - Kennedy v. Kennedy