24 Cal. 3d 22 - Salas v. Cortez’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
5 district · 237 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 242 later decisions — most recently May 2021 · most notably 35 Cal. 3d 510 - People v. Geiger (1984), 19 Cal. 4th 108 - People v. Birks (1998)
5 district · 237 state decisions — followed in 16 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
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1673 · 42 U.S.C. § 602 (§ 402 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 651 (§ 451 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 654 (§ 454 of the Social Security Act of 1935)
Relies on Gault · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Boddie v. Connecticut · Argersinger v. Hamlin · Ross v. Moffitt
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 242 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[B]y intervening heavily on behalf of one side in what has traditionally been a private dispute, the state has skewed the outcome of the case. The chances that the significant consequences of fatherhood will be imposed on an innocent man obviously increase dramatically if, because he is unable to afford counsel, the defendant offers no defense. They increase still further if counsel for the plaintiff [the State] is a specialist in prosecuting such claims. . . . Unless the rights of indigent paternity defendants are protected, courts risk find ing not the right man, but simply the poorest man to be the father of a child.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage““The state’s interest in determining parentage has traditionally been limited to preventing children born out of wedlock from becoming public charges (see an Act for Setting the Poor on Work (1576), 18 Eliz. 1, Ch. 3, § 2, quoted in Krause, supra, at pp. 105-106). The amendments to federal law which gave rise to the present cases were brought about by concerns similar to those that inspired the Elizabethan Poor Laws — the increasing appearance on the welfare rolls of children born out of wedlock. (See, Note (1976), 52 Wash.L.Rev. 169, 170). In recent years nearly half of the families receiving AFDC have had at least one child born out of wedlock. (Id. at 177.) Were the state able to recover from absent parents even a portion of the funds expended through the AFDC program, the savings would be substantial. (See, Id. at 172.) “It is clearly within the power of the state to provide for the enforcement of the parental duty to support one’s children. The state may further legitimately provide for the expenditure of public funds to assist custodial parents in enforcing the support obligations of absent parents, whether or not the custodial parent is receiving public assistance. Such efforts are a laudable attempt to prevent custodial parents, the overwhelming majority of which are women, from having to bear alone the burden of a mutual decision to engage in sexual relations . . .” 154 Cal.Rptr. at 536 , 593 P.2d at 233 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“There are many reasons why the man named by a mother as the father of her child may not necessarily be the father. She may simply not know which of several possible men is in fact the father. Additionally, she may wish to protect the actual father or protect herself from retribution from him. (See generally, Poulin, Illegitimacy and Family Privacy (1976) 70 Nw. U. L. Rev. 910 , 923-24). Since cooperation with the district attorney is mandatory for women receiving AFDC, a mother may also simply supply a name in order to avoid termination of welfare benefits. (Gliaudys, supra, 53 State Bar J. at p. 322). Further, studies have shown that much testimony regarding the parties’ sexual contacts in paternity suits is unreliable. (See Krause, Illegitimacy: Law and Social Policy (1971), pp. 107-108).”
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.