Ethelbah v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “for the recovery by one party from the other of an amount of money for maintenance, for a limited or indefinite period of time, in gross or in installments, as may be just and necessary without regard to which of the parties is in fault an award of maintenance must fairly allocate the economic effect of divorce by being based on a consideration of the following factors: (A) the length of the marriage and station in life of the parties during the marriage; (B) the age and health of the parties; (C) the earning capacity of the parties, including - their - educational - backgrounds, training, employment skills, work experiences, length of absence from the job market, and custodial responsibilities for children during the marriage; (D) the financial condition of the parties, including the availability and cost of health insurance; (E) the conduct of the parties, including whether there has been unreasonable depletion of marital assets; (F) the division of property under (4) of this subsection; and (G) other factors the court determines to be relevant in each individual case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Urban v. Urban

2. “If assets no longer exist or are not owned by the parties, they are not available for distribution. However, where there is evidence that a marital asset was dissipated, wasted, or converted to a non-marital form, the court can 'recapture' the asset by giving it an earlier valuation date and crediting all or part of it to the account of the party who controlled the asset.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Day v. Williams

3. “did not err as a matter of law or make any erroneous factual findings in adopting the individual rate calculation to value this asset.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Engstrom v. Engstrom