Wortham v. John’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““That no guardian can be appointed to the person of an infant having father or mother living, not declared unsuitable by a court of competent jurisdiction, nor a guardian or curator to an infant whose father or mother is entitled, under the law, to take charge of its estate as natural guardian, has already been pointed out as the law in most states. But parents may be adjudged incompetent or unfit to have the custody, care, and education of their children in proceedings for that purpose by a court having jurisdiction, in.which proceeding the parents must be made parties, by notice to them enabling them to appear and be heard, unless they appear voluntarily. It is a fraud on the rights of a father to obtain guardianship of his child without his knowledge; and the appointment of a guardian to an illegitimate child, or to a legitimate child, after its father’s death, without notice to the mother, is void.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Roberts v. Whiteman