Gervin v. Reddick’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently March 2013
16 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 Stewart v. Jarriel · Gibson v. Singleton · Sanders v. Edwards · Lee v. Warren · Carden v. LaGrone
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is beyond cavil that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion includes the authority of religious bodies to make their own decisions, free from state interference, in matters of church government, faith and doctrine. Thus, civil courts have no jurisdiction to inquire into and to control the acts of the governing authority of a religious organization undertaken with reference to its internal affairs. But it is also the case that it is well-settled that a court of equity will take jurisdiction over disputes involving churches when property rights are involved and when the suit is brought on behalf of a majority of the congregation.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““[a] court of equity will not interfere with the internal affairs of a religious organization, when no property rights are involved; for the reason that civil courts have no jurisdiction of such matters and cannot take jurisdiction of them. . . .” [Cits.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Bolden v. Barton“resolve[s] the property issues by determining which group represented the majority of the congregation,”
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.