Spratlin v. Evans’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 state decisions

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.

1. “We are met . . . with the common law presumption, long valid in this State, that a child born to a legally married woman is the legitimate child of the husband and the presumption is one of the strongest presumptions known to the law. It is only rebuttable by the strongest type of evidence such as conclusive evidence of impotency of the husband, or nonaccess between the parties at the time of conception. The moral and social reasons for retaining this common law presumption in domestic relations and in the property laws relating to descent and distribution are too obvious and well known to justify comment, and our decisions on this point are so numerous and uniform we deem it unnecessary to cite them.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bankston v. Prime West Corp.

2. ““Child” means a natural child, a posthumous child, a child legally adopted prior to injury of the employee, a stepchild, an acknowledged illegitimate child of the deceased or spouse of the deceased, and a foster child. “Child” shall not include married children, unless wholly dependent upon the deceased.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McCoy ex rel. McCoy v. Preston Logging