Finlay v. Finlay’s Empirical Analysis
1925
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 3 district · 328 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 354 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably People of State of New York Halvey v. Halvey (1947), Kovacs v. Brewer (1958)
8 federal appellate · 3 district · 328 state decisions — followed in 42 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
Relies on Morrill v. Morrill · Johnson v. . Johnson · White v. White · Lanning v. Gregory · Matter of Knowack
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 354 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The chancellor in exercising his jurisdiction . . . does not proceed upon the theory that the petitioner, whether father or mother, has a cause of action against the other or indeed against any one. ... He is not adjudicating a controversy between adversary parties, to compose their private differences. He is not determining rights “as between a parent and a child” or as between one parent and another . . . Equity does not concern itself with such disputes in their relation to the disputants. Its concern is for the child.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“in the position of a 'wise, affectionate, and careful parent,' . . . 'by virtue of the prerogative which belongs to the Crown as parens patriae.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“to do what is best for the interest of the child,”
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.