Elzey v. Elzey’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently December 2016 · most notably Rutherford v. Katzenberger (1983), Jones v. State (1998)
44 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 Hill v. United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners, Local 25 · State v. Roll and Scholl · Dickey v. Dickey · Oles Envelope Corp. v. Oles · Winter v. Crowley
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.
“"In all civil contempt proceedings, any order imposing a penalty upon the defendant must contain a purging provision with which the defendant has the ability to comply. State v. Roll and Scholl, supra, 267 Md. at 728; McDaniel v. McDaniel, supra, 256 Md. at 689-690, 692 ; Johnson v. Johnson, 241 Md. 416, 419-420 , 216 A.2d 914 (1966). The `choice' must be the defendant's `as to whether [he can] comply.' Williams and Fulwood v. Director, supra, 276 Md. at 313 . "Consequently, with regard to civil contempt proceedings based upon the defendant's failure to comply with a decree ordering support payments, `imprisonment may be avoided by showing that one has neither the money nor the ability to pay.' Soldano v. Soldano, 258 Md. 145, 146 , 265 A.2d 263 (1970). Moreover, the issue is not the ability to pay at the time the payments were originally ordered; instead, the issue is his present ability to pay. As stated in Johnson v. Johnson, supra, 241 Md. at 419 -420: `If the father was unable to meet his obligation because he had neither a sufficient estate nor the then ability to pay, as the record seems to indicate, the court was not justified in incarcerating him.' * * * See McDaniel v. McDaniel, supra, 256 Md. at 692-693 ; Speckler v. Speckler, 256 Md. 635, 637 , 261 A.2d 466 (1970); Schwartzman v. Schwartzman, 204 Md. 125, 135 , 102 A.2d 810 (1954); Oles Envelope Corp. v. Oles, 193 Md. 79, 92 , 65 A.2d 899 (1949); Dickey v. Dickey, 154 Md. 675, 681 , 141 A. 387 , 58 A.L.R. 634 (192”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Situations may arise where at a hearing held pursuant to an order to show cause in what properly began as a civil contempt, facts are presented which indicate that the alleged contemnor cannot comply with the order of the court that directed him to perform an act for the benefit and advantage of another party to the suit. If this inability to comply was caused by a deliberate effort or a wilful act of commission or omission by the alleged contemnor committed with the knowledge that it would frustrate the order of the court, the civil contempt proceeding should be terminated and new proceedings may be instituted which can result in a finding of criminal contempt.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lynch v. Lynch
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.