Mullen v. Sawyer’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently January 2015 · most notably 20 N.C. App. 11 - Mezzanotte v. Freeland (1973), Yount v. Lowe (1975)
38 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 Pike v. Wachovia Bank and Trust Company · Blades v. Szatai · Stanley v. Cox · Church v. Hancock · Commercial National Bank of Charlotte v. Charlotte Supply Co.
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) Does the language create a lien upon the father’s property? (2) Is there a special consideration in favor of the father? (3) Is there a specific termination time for the payments? (4) Is there an obligation in excess of the common law duty to support? These elements in themselves may not be conclusive, but in the present case they may assist in determining the intent of Dr. Sawyer at the time he signed the consent judgment.”
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.