21 N.C. App. 390 - Bennett v. Bennett’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently October 2018 · most notably 35 N.C. App. 748 - Moore v. Moore (1978), 74 N.C. App. 82 - Plott v. Plott (1985)
37 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 Mauney v. Mauney · Lamm v. . Lamm · 10 N.C. App. 476 - Cox v. Cox · Gorrell v. Gorrell · Vaughan v. Vaughan
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In determining a contemnor's present ability to pay, the appellate courts of this state have directed trial courts to 'take an inventory of the property of the plaintiff; find what are his assets and liabilities and his ability to pay and work-an inventory of his financial condition.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“... [I]n order to find a party in civil contempt, the court must find that the party acted willfully in failing to comply with the order at issue. "Willfulness constitutes: (1) an ability to comply with the court order; and (2) a deliberate and intentional failure to do so." Therefore, in order to address the requirement of willfulness, "the trial court must make findings as to the ability of the [contemnor] to comply with the court order during the period when in default." ... Second, once the trial court has found that the party had the means to comply with the prior order and deliberately refused to do so, "the court may commit such [party] to jail[.] ... At that point, however, ... the court must find that the party has the present ability to pay the total outstanding amount.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Tigani v. Tigani
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.