Ward v. Dulaney’s Empirical Analysis
1852
Citation profile
9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently September 1969
9 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.
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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““What degree of mental imbecility, what extent of intellectual aberration^, will suffice to annul a contract of marriage, it is difficult to pronounce. Certainly, mere weakness of intellect, or even great eccentricity of conduct, unless it reaches a point that evinces inability to comprehend the subject-matter of the contract, will not suffice; and every principle of sound policy and humanity admonishes us that a contract so important in its social relations, and bearing so materially on the peace and happiness of families, should not be set aside upon slight grounds, or on less proof than would suffice to annul contracts less sacred and important in their nature.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Forman v. Forman
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.