Ames v. Ames’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently January 2024
17 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 State v. Hebert · Wrenn v. Lewis · Ames v. Ames · Cloutier v. Lear · Zink v. Zink
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Absent any clear error in the underlying factual determinations, we review the denial of a motion for civil contempt for abuse of discretion. For a court to find contempt, the alleged contemnor must be presently able to comply with the court’s order. When it is impossible for a party to comply, the party is not in contempt. It is presumed that an alleged contemnor is presently able to comply when the order itself implies that he was able to comply at the time the order was issued; therefore, the moving party makes a prima facie case of contempt when the moving party establishes that the alleged contemnor has not complied with a valid court order. Once the failure to comply has been established, the alleged contemnor has the burden of production, of going forward with evidence of his inability to comply. The burden of persuasion, however, remains with the moving party.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The policy behind [ 19-A M.R.S. § 2009 ] is to require that the party who may be adversely affected by a change in the child support amount be put on notice that the amount may change ....”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[O]nce an issue is generated by a pending motion, it is within the court's authority to fashion an award to serve the children's best interest.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.