Hendrickson v. Hendrickson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Visitation between a child and her noncustodial parent is presumed to be in the best interests of the child. Visitation is not only a privilege of the noncustodial parent, but also a right of the child. Only when visitation “is likely to endanger the child’s physical or emotional health,” may it be withheld. Having recognized and acknowledged the importance of the noncustodial parent’s visitation privilege, we have also emphasized that frustration of visitation does not alone constitute a sufficient change in circumstances to warrant a change in custody. Before visitation problems justify changing custody, there must be a finding that the visitation problems had worked against the child’s best interests. In this case, while the district court found that [the mother’s] efforts to frustrate visitation, in effect, deprived [the child] of contact with loving family members, that deprivation is better remedied at first by resort to a more rigid visitation schedule, rather than a change of custody.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Anderson v. Resler

2. “Although, we recognize methods other than a change of custody should be used initially to remedy a parent’s misbehavior, we also recognize that, after exhausting other remedies, a change in custody may be the only method to correct the damage of a particularly stubborn and defiant custodial parent. If the alternative remedies fail, the district court should consider a change of custody-”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Anderson v. Resler