Linstroth v. Dorgan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “• The former wife has been residing with Mr. Bradford, unrelated to her by consanguinity or affinity, since August of 1990 and they presently intend to do so permanently. The relationship is an intimate one. For ten years after Mr. Bradford moved to South Florida, they resided together exclusively in the former wife’s home in Florida. • In 2000, Mr. Bradford retired and purchased a home in North Carolina. For the following years, the couple resided in North Carolina for six months in the summer and in Florida for six months in the winter. In June, 2004 the former wife sold her Florida home and the couple resided exclusively in North Carolina until the former wife purchased another home in Florida in 2005. They use each other’s residences as common mailing addresses, use the Florida residence on their Florida driver’s licenses, share cooking and household responsibilities, and sleep together in the same room. They are seldom apart and travel together abroad. • The former wife has a checking account as does Mr. Bradford. In 1997, they added each other on their respective checking accounts in the event that one would have to pay the bills of the other during a period of incapacity. However, neither has written a check on the other’s account. Each uses their own account to pay their own bills. They have not comingled their funds. While they share an American Express account, they each maintain separate cards and mostly pay their separate expenses on their respective cards. Occasi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. French v. French

2. “When the Legislature voted on this statute, the existing legal landscape held that the courts had no power to treat cohabitation as having the same effect on alimony that remarriage produces. With remarriage, the central reason for terminating alimony was tied to the justification for the award of alimony in the first place. If alimony is intended as support for a former spouse having a need, and the former spouse has now entered into a supportive relationship in which she receives the kind of support found in marriage, what is the justification for requiring her former spouse also to continue supporting her? Why should the law require that a previously married person be supported by two separate members of the opposite sex: one from whom she is divorced and one with whom she is cohabiting? For purposes of the policies justifying a termination of alimony, what would be the rationale for distinguishing between remarriage and mere cohabitation in a supportive relationship?”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. French v. French

3. “[Sjection 61.14(l)(b) requires the court to determine if an alimony obligee has entered into a relationship that provides the economic support equivalent to a marriage, and if so, the court may reduce or terminate alimony as the equities require. Section 61.14(l)(b) is actually a codification of prior case law which held that, in post dissolution matters, cohabitation can be a basis for reduction or termination of alimony awards.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Elbaum v. Elbaum