190 N.C. App. 209 - Mason v. Dwinnell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

54 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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he court’s focus must be on whether the legal parent has voluntarily chosen to create a family unit and to cede to the third party a sufficiently significant amount of parental responsibility and decision-making authority to create a permanent parent-like relationship with his or her child. The parent’s intentions regarding that relationship are necessarily relevant to that inquiry. By looking at both the legal parent’s conduct and his or her intentions, we ensure that the situation is not one in which the third party has assumed a parent-like status on his or her own without that being the goal of the legal parent.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 211 N.C. App. 267 - Rodriguez v. Rodriguez · 213 N.C. App. 353 - Powers v. Wagner

2. “[i]ntentions after the ending of the relationship between the parties are not relevant because the right of the legal parent does not extend to erasing a relationship between her partner and her child which she voluntarily created and actively fostered simply because after the party's separation she regretted having done so.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 256 N.C. App. 34 - Moriggia v. Castelo · 206 N.C. App. 521 - Davis v. Swan

3. “In Mason the parties jointly decided to create a family and intentionally took steps to identify the nonparent as a parent of the child. These steps included using both parties’ surnames to derive the child’s name, allowing the nonparent to participate in the pregnancy and birth, and holding a baptismal ceremony at which the nonparent was announced as a parent. After the child’s birth, the parties acted as a family unit. They shared caretaking and financial responsibilities for the child. As a result of the parties’ creation, the nonparent became the only other adult whom the child considers a parent. The parent in that case also relinquished custody of the minor child to the nonparent with no expectation that the non-parent’s relationship with the child would be terminated. The parent chose to share her decision-making authority with the nonparent. The parent also executed a Parenting Agreement in which she agreed that the nonparent should participate in making all major decisions regarding their child.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sides v. Ikner · Boseman v. Jarrell