Bennett v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1856
Citation profile
30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently March 1973 · most notably Multer v. Knibbs (1907), 62 Misc. 2d 182 - MC GRADY v. Rosenbaum (1970)
30 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Palmer v. Andrews · Schuneman v. Palmer
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In respect to what facts will support an action by a husband for depriving him of his wife, there is, in principle, a clear distinction between the cases where the action is against a parent of the wife, and where it is against a stranger. Parents are under obligations, by the law of nature, to protect their children from injury and relieve them when in distress; and their natural affection for their offspring dictates and prompts to such protection. This is recognized by the common law, and is the foundation of the rules which allow parents to do some things in respect to and in behalf of their children which are not allowed to be done by others, and which in some cases mitigate crimes committed by parents to which they are excited by injuries to their children . . . This duty of protection, in reason and justice,- extends to wrongs done or threatened by a husband as Avell as by other persons, and the acts of parents are entitled to be regarded in the same spirit in such a case as in others.. Where the conduct of a husband is such as to endanger the personal safety of his wife, or is so immoral and indecent as to render him greatly unfit for her society, so much so that she Avould be justified in abandoning him, her parents ought to, and I have no doubt have the right, not only to receive her into, and allow her the comforts of their home, which even a stranger may do in such a case, hut also to advise her to come and remain there. No parent with ordinary parental feelings ”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Barton v. Barton
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.