Fish v. Fish’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Crews v. Crews (2010), Saunders v. Firtel (2009)
57 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 Santosky v. Kramer · Troxel v. Granville · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Connecticut courts likewise have recognized the constitutionally protected right of parents to raise and care for their children.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“If the court determines that the commitment should be revoked and the child's or youth's legal guardianship or permanent legal guardianship should vest in someone other than the respondent parent, parents or former guardian, or if parental rights are terminated at any time, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that an award of legal guardianship or permanent legal guardianship upon revocation to, or adoption upon termination of parental rights by, any relative who is licensed as a foster parent for such child or youth, or who is, pursuant to an order of the court, the temporary custodian of the child or youth at the time of the revocation or termination, shall be in the best interests of the child or youth and that such relative is a suitable and worthy person to assume legal guardianship or permanent legal guardianship upon revocation or to adopt such child or youth upon termination of parental rights. The presumption may be rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence that an award of legal guardianship or permanent legal guardianship to, or an adoption by, such relative would not be in the child's or youth's best interests and such relative is not a suitable and worthy person. The court shall order specific steps that the parent must take to facilitate the return of the child or youth to the custody of such parent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“third party custody petitions challenge the liberty interest of a parent in a way that is fundamentally different from visitation petitions and that the judicial gloss [our Supreme Court] placed on the visitation statute in Roth should not be applied to § 46b-56b because it does not give adequate consideration to the welfare of the child, whose relationship with the parent is at issue in a custody proceeding because of its allegedly harmful effects. This is not the case in a visitation proceeding, in which the child's relationship with the parent has not been placed in issue. The constitutional question in a [third-party] custody proceeding therefore must be framed and resolved in a manner that respects parental rights but that also takes the child's welfare more directly into account.”
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.