Davis v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
1938
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently October 1991
20 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 Pierce v. . Pierce · Zachmann v. Zachmann · Oliphant v. Oliphant · Shirey v. Shirey · Spurlock v. Brown
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But, in the absence of clear and satisfactory proof, it is not to be presumed that she would, with full knowledge of all the circumstances, have entered into such a contract. Parties to an antenuptial contract occupy a confidential relation toward each other, (citing cases) While they may lawfully contract with each other where there is full knowledge of all that materially affects the contract, yet where the provision secured for the intended wife is disproportionate to the means of the intended husband, it raises the presumption of designed concealment, and throws the burden upon those claiming in his right to prove that there was full knowledge, on her part, of all that materially affected the contract, (citing cases) The burden here was, therefore, upon appellants to prove, by satisfactory evidence, that appellee had knowledge of the character and extent of her husband’s property, and of the provisions and effect of this instrument, or, at all events, that the circumstances were such that she reasonably ought to have had such knowledge at the time this instrument was executed.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Wylie v. Wylie““So it will be seen that the principle is announced in all of our cases, that in order for antenuptial contracts to be valid, they must be freely entered into, must not be unjust or inequitable and they must not be tainted with fraud. It appears to us that the contract in this case fails to meet these requirements in that it is an unjust and inequitable agreement.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Wylie v. Wylie
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.