Higgins v. McFarland’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently December 2017 · most notably 108 Wis. 2d 205 - Merten v. Nathan (1982), 216 Wis. 2d 521 - Flynn v. Department of Administration (1998)
35 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 Williams v. State of North Carolina · Williams v. State of North Carolina · Eaton v. Davis · Barnes v. American Fertilizer Co. · Wallihan v. Hughes
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'that principle of law under which freedom of contract or private dealings is restricted by law for the good of the community.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“act of placing [a separation agreement] before the court is the act of the parties. The acts of approving the agreement and setting it out in the decree are acts of the court and the parties are vested with the property rights therein stated by virtue of the judicial sanction and determination of the court and not by the act of the parties in laying the agreement before it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.