Fox v. Fox’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently September 2020
13 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 49 Cal. 2d 210 - Spellens v. Spellens · Sanguinetti v. Sanguinetti · Cooper v. Cooper · 88 Cal. App. 2d 708 - Lazzarevich v. Lazzarevich · Blossom v. . Barrett
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. . .There is no evidence in the record inconsistent with Dorothy’s belief that she was legally married to Walter, and Walter has offered no proof tending to show that Dorothy did not believe they were still legally married, except her long toleration of his own philandering activities. A legal common-law marriage cannot be entered into in Arkansas, nor can one be created by estoppel, but equity should, and we hold that it does, under the facts in this case, require that Walter be estopped to deny that the divorce decree was set aside or “thrown out” before it became final, and he is estopped to deny such rights as Dorothy would be entitled to had a divorce decree never been entered.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The theory is that the marriage is not made valid by reason of the estoppel but that the estopped person may not take a position that the divorce or latter marriage was invalid.... We think it may now be stated that the general public policy in this jurisdiction, as judicially interpreted, no longer prevents application in annulment actions of the laches and estoppel doctrines in determining the effect to be given such divorce decrees.... Rather it is that defendant by reason of his conduct will not be permitted to question its validity of the divorce; so far as he is concerned, he and plaintiff are husband and wife.... It may be noted also that we are not recognizing a common law marriage which does not exist in this state for the theory is that the marriage is not validated; it is merely that defendant cannot contest it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Fares v. Fares“The theory [of estoppel] is that the marriage is not made valid by reason of the estoppel but that the estopped person may not take a position that the divorce or latter marriage was invalid. . . . . . [T]he defendant by reason of his conduct will not be permitted to question its validity or the divorce; so far as he is concerned, he and the plaintiff are husband and wife.”
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.