Leach v. Leach’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently August 2003 · most notably Boblitz v. Boblitz (1983), 161 W. Va. 557 - Coffindaffer v. Coffindaffer (1978)
2 federal appellate · 47 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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 Fitzpatrick v. Owens · Katzenberg v. Katzenberg · Roaring Springs Independent School Dist. v. McAbee · Scholtens v. Scholtens · Fehr v. General Accident Fire & Life Assurance Corp.
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The courts which follow this majority view have buttressed their conclusion by inventing new arguments, not found in the early cases, for denying the remedy. Apart from stare decisis or judicial inertia, and the policy of strict construction of statutes changing the common law, it has been said that each spouse has remedy enough in the criminal and divorce laws which obviously is untrue, since neither compensates for the damage done, or covers all the torts that may be committed. Stress has been laid upon the danger of fictitious and fraudulent claims, on the very dubious assumption that a wife's love for her husband is such that she is more likely to bring a false suit against him than a genuine one; and likewise the possibility of trivial actions for minor annoyances, which might well be taken care of by finding consent to all ordinary frictions of wedlock or at least assumption of risk ! The chief reason relied upon by all these courts, however, is that personal tort actions between husband and wife would disrupt and destroy the peace and harmony of the home, which is against the policy of the law. This is on the bald theory that after a husband has beaten his wife, there is a state of peace and harmony left to be disturbed; and that if she is sufficiently injured or angry to sue him for it, she will be soothed and deterred from reprisals by denying her the legal remedy and this even though she has left him or divorced him for that very ground, and though the same c”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.