Ross v. Hoffman’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
2 district · 199 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 203 later decisions — most recently July 2021 · most notably In Re Adoption/Guardianship No. 3598 (1997), Maryland Metals, Inc. v. Metzner (1978)
2 district · 199 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 Davis v. Davis · Bennett v. Jeffreys · Ross v. Pick · Dietrich v. Anderson · Chapsky v. Wood
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 203 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he length of time the child has been away from the biological parent, the age of the child when care was assumed by the third party, the possible emotional effect on the child of a change of custody, the period of time which elapsed before the parent sought to reclaim the child, the nature and strength of the ties between the child and the third party custodian, the intensity and genuineness of the parent’s desire to have the child, the stability and certainty as to the child’s future in the custody of the parent.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he best interest of the child standard is always determinative in child custody disputes. When the dispute is between a biological parent and a third party, it is presumed that the child’s best interest is subserved by custody in the parent. That presumption is overcome and such custody will be denied if (a) the parent is unfit to have custody, or (b) if there are such exceptional circumstances as make such custody detrimental to the best interest of the child. Therefore, in parent-third party disputes over custody,' it is only upon a determination ... that the parent is unfit or that there are exceptional circumstances which make custody in the parent detrimental to the best interest of the child, that the court need inquire into the best interest of the child in order to make a proper custodial disposition.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he ultimate conclusion as to the custody of a child is within the sound discretion of the chancellor. That conclusion is neither bound by the strictures of the clearly erroneous rule, that rule applying only to factual findings of the chancellor in reaching the conclusion, nor is it a matter of the best judgment of the reviewing court. It is not enough that the appellate court find that the chancellor was merely mistaken in order to set aside the custody award. Rather, the appellate court must determine that the judicial discretion the chancellor exercised was clearly-abused.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.