Smith v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1962
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently August 2014 · most notably 26 Md. App. 620 - Kramer v. Kramer (1975), Wooddy v. Wooddy (1970)
10 federal appellate · 40 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 Lopez v. Lopez · Brown v. Brown · Roberts v. Roberts · Borchert v. Borchert · Hull v. Hull
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"It is significant, we think, that at the first opportunity after the Borchert decision further legislative action was in fact taken. At its 1947 session the Legislature enacted an act now codified as § 97 of Art. 27, Code (1957), making it a criminal offense for a parent, possessing the means, to fail to provide for a destitute adult child where mental or physical infirmity makes it impossible for the child to care for itself. The passage of this act is a clear indication of legislative intent to place failure to support an incapacitated child on equal footing with failure to support a minor child. "”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"However desirable it may be for some power to exist by which a father may be compelled to support his son, ... the Legislature has not seen fit to make the failure to do so a criminal offense although it has so designated such failure in other domestic situations heretofore mentioned. The omission by the legislative branch of the government of such a statute is an indication that the failure to support an incapacitated child is placed by it on a different footing from the failure to support a minor child. We cannot now without further legislative action hold that the divorce statute attempted to be invoked in this case is enlarged to include other than minor children."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““As to the second part of this contention, it assumes that when a minor reaches an employable age the parent is no longer obliged to support him. Nothing in the statutes indicates such a qualification of a parent’s obligation to support his minor children, nor has our attention been called to any decisions so holding. Cf. Roberts v. Roberts, 160 Md. 513 , 154 Atl. 95 (1931). As has been said many times, in the award of alimony and support money the financial circumstances of the parties, their station in life, and the expense of educating the children are among the factors to be considered. The record before us shows that a college education for the children has been afforded as an incident of the station in life of this family, and the father is financially able to pay the modest allowance made for the minor son while attending college, until he attains his majority, when the qbliga tion will cease.” ( 227 Md. at 361 , 176 A. 2d at 865-66 ).”
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.