Britton v. Bryson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

29 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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . It is argued in the instant case that by virtue of the death of the husband, the res—that is to say, the marital status—ceased to exist, and any action involving the marital status of the parties must necessarily cease to be an action in rem and becomes one in personam. We do not think this necessarily follows. It is now well settled in California that subsequent to the death of one of the parties, the other may have said decree set aside upon proof that the judgment of divorce was procured by extrinsic fraud. (McGuinness v. Superior Court, 196 Cal. 222 [ 40 A.L.R. 1110 , 237 P. 42 ] ; Tomb v. Tomb, 120 Cal.App. 438 [ 7 P.2d 1104 ].) It is evident, therefore, that regardless of the existence of the res— that is to say, the marital status—the court had sufficient jurisdiction to render a valid judgment with reference thereto. It would seem, therefore, that the power to render such a judgment is based not upon the continued existence of the marital status but upon the court’s control of its own records, and its inherent power to purge its records of judgments obtained by fraud. In other words, in such an action the res is not the marital status, which has ceased to exist, but the former judgment itself over which the court continues to retain power. That this is so is, we think, indicated by the language of Mr. Justice Richards in the ease of McGuinness v. Superior Court, supra. In that case the wife after the death of her husband sought and secured a decree setting asid”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 148 Cal. App. 2d 479 - Olson v. Olson