Laing v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently May 2013 · most notably 47 Va. App. 687 - George M. Epps, Sheriff of City of Petersburg, Virginia v. Commonwealth (2006), Jones v. Commonwealth (1984)
29 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 Robertson v. Commonwealth · Buchanan v. Buchanan · Board of Supervisors v. Bazile · Branch v. Branch · Laing v. Commonwealth
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is true that the inability of an alleged contemner, without fault on his part, to render obedience to an order of court is a good defense to a charge of contempt. But where an alleged contemner has voluntarily and contumaciously brought on himself disability to obey an order, he cannot avail himself of a plea of inability to obey as a defense to the charge of contempt.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he inability of an alleged contemner, without fault on his part, to render obedience to an order of court, is a good defense to a charge of contempt.”
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.