Pittinger v. Pittinger’s Empirical Analysis
1901
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently April 1973 · most notably Supreme Council of Royal Arcanum v. Behrend (1918), 79 Cal. App. 560 - Marsh v. Van Allen Marsh (1926)
1 federal appellate · 38 state decisions — followed in 16 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 Johnson v. Johnson · Teter v. Teter · Supreme Lodge, Knights of Honor v. Davis · Williams v. Williams · Lampkin v. Travelers' Insurance
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.
““No man is presumed to do an unlawful act. "When a marriage has been shown, the law raises a strong presumption in favor of its legality. By some of the authorities this presumption is said to be one of the strongest known to the law. Its strength increases with the lapse of time. This presumption arises because the law presumes morality and not immorality, and that every intendment is in favor of matrimony.....This presumption applies with peculiar force in favor of one who is unable to prove affirmatively that the man with whom she entered into the marriage relation in good faith was divorced from a former wife. Appellee was not acquainted with deceased until she met .him in Colorado, and, except for the presumption in favor of her innocence, there would be imposed upon her an unreasonable burden if she is required to show that prior to her contracting marriage with the assured he had been divorced.....Considering the strong presumption which the law raises in favor of the innocence of appellee and the validity of her marriage with deceased, in connection with the lapse of time between the date when he separated from his wife in Pennsylvania and married appellee in this state, coupled with the further facts that he left his first wife with the intention of never living with her again, .... and that legal divorce proceedings might have been instituted and terminated in his favor without process being received by her, we are of the opinion that this testimony is insufficient ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Huff v. Huff
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.