Greene v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““I have no question but what the Greene home is one of refinement, pervaded by a Christian atmosphere, and one in the confines of which a child would derive no harm. “The home of the respondent is at least equal in all these requisites to the home which petitioner seeks to take his daughter. “I realize how desirable it is that this child should come into more familiar contact and association with her brother and with her father, but I think that there are other considerations which are more vital to the child’s welfare and more controlling in this case than either or any of these. “I also realize that ordinarily the parent has and should have a superior right to the custody of his child and that his poverty or lack of financial means should not be given any great weight to deprive him of this natural right, but I also realize that the rule of superior right is not a hard and fast rule. A child is not a chattel nor subject to ownership as such. “The paramount question under the law in all cases of this character is the welfare of the child. All other considerations must yield to this one. The dying wish of the mother, the desire and purpose of the father, the otherwise superior right of either father or mother even the wish of the child herself, are and must not be entirely controlling.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Ernst

2. ““The power of parental control, though recognized as a natural right and protected when properly exercised, is by no means an inalienable one. When the ‘right of custody’ is involved between respective claimants for a child, the courts, though in the first instance recognizing prima facie rights of relationship, in the final test are not strictly bound by demands founded upon purely technical claims or naked legal rights, but may and should, in making the award, be governed by the paramount consideration of what is really demanded by the best interests of the child.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Ernst

3. ““Prima facie the father was, and by the adoption to which he consented petitioner is, entitled to the custody of the child. The law recognizes the rights of the father because it recognizes the natural duties and obligations of the father. The father’s right to and authority over his child are secure and inviolable so long as lie properly discharges the correlative duties.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Ernst