Becker v. Becker’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently January 2012
20 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 Cameron v. Cameron · In Re the Marriage of Rolfe · In Re the Marriage of Herron · In Re the Marriage of Jorgensen · In Re the Marriage of Burleigh
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In dividing property in a marriage dissolution the district court has far reaching discretion and its judgment will not be altered without a showing of clear abuse of discretion. The test of discretion is whether the trial court acted arbitrarily without employment of conscientious judgment or exceeded the bounds of reason resulting in substantial injustice.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If none of the value of the property is a product of contribution from the marital effort, the district court can justifiably find that the non-acquiring spouse has no interest in the property. .... ... Both parties here should share equally in the portion of the value of the gift property attributable to contribution from the marriage and appreciation during marriage. The Herrons should not, however, share equally in the total value of the property since the marital assets came to the marriage principally as gifts for Mrs. Herron's benefit.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Here, respondent received her stock in Mill Creek Farm as a gift under her parents’ estate planning scheme. Moreover, neither party worked on the farm except for isolated odd jobs. At trial, appellant replied ‘absolutely not’ when asked if he felt he had made a significant contribution to the farm operation. He also agreed with counsel’s remark that appellant made no claim to any interest in the family farm . . . [T]he District Court could justifiably find that appellant had no interest in respondent’s stock. (Citations omitted.) We hold that there was no abuse of discretion in excluding respondent’s stock from the marital estate.””
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.