Steinke v. Steinke’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently July 1994 · most notably 241 Pa. Super. 53 - Schrock v. Schrock (1976), 249 Pa. Super. 78 - Ryave v. Ryave (1977)
50 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 Durham v. United States · United States v. Brawner · Commonwealth v. Woodhouse · Geach v. Illinois · McKrell v. McKrell
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... it shall be lawful for the innocent and injured spouse to obtain a divorce from the bonds of matrimony, if . . the other spouse: . . . (f) shall have offered such indignities to the person of the injured and innocent spouse, as to render his or her condition intolerable and life burdensome;” (Emphasis supplied).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is true that conduct springing from mental ill health cannot constitute indignities because it must be regarded as unintentional and lacking in the spirit of hate and estrangement which is the heart of the charge of indignities. Barr v. Barr, [ 232 Pa.Super. 9 , 331 A.2d 774 (1974)]: Boggs v. Boggs, 221 Pa.Super. 22 , 289 A.2d 479 (1972); Fawcett v. Fawcett, 159 Pa.Super. 185 , 48 A.2d 23 (1946). “ ‘[This] doctrine must not, however, be pushed to extremes. The guilty spouse cannot excuse . . . mistreatment amounting to indignities by the shallow excuse of nervousness or irritability unfounded in any specific ailment. The law still considers the parties as masters of their own conduct unless legal insanity has intervened . . . or recognizable and definable disease has usurped the will, and the ill-treatment is but the normal manifestation of the derangement of health.’ ” Dougherty v. Dougherty, 235 Pa.Super. 122, 130 , 339 A.2d 81, 85 (1975), quoting, 2 A. Freedman, Law of Marriage and Divorce in Pennsylvania, 700-01 (2d ed. 1957).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“It has thus generally been determined that such conduct must constitute a course of behavior which is humiliating and degrading, inconsistent with the injured individual's position as a [spouse], making that condition intolerable and life a burden to [the spouse]. A single act of indignity is not sufficient, but a course of treatment "of such character as to render the condition of any [person] of ordinary sensibility and delicacy of feeling intolerable and [his or] her life burdensome," will present grounds for divorce. [Citation omitted.] Such conduct is understood to manifest the spirit of malevolence, hate and estrangement which has come to replace natural love and affection in a marriage and is central to a charge of indignities. [Citation omitted.] (Emphasis in original.)”
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.