Wilson v. Wilson’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
104 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 104 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably Burns v. Burns (1993), McKay v. McKay (2000)
104 state decisions — followed in 10 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 103 Wis. 2d 327 - Holbrook v. Holbrook · Dugan v. Dugan · Day v. Day · Taylor v. Taylor · Powell v. Powell
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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) Where goodwill is a marketable business asset distinct from the personal reputation of a particular individual, as is usually the case with many commercial enterprises, that goodwill has an immediately discernible value as an asset of the business and may be identi fied as an amount reflected in a sale or transfer of a business. (2) If the goodwill depends on the continued presence of a particular individual, such good will, by definition, is not a marketable asset distinct from the individual.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“for professional goodwill to be marital property it must be a business asset having a value independent of the continued presence or reputation of any particular individual.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“Because most of appellee’s bonus accrued and, therefore, was acquired during his marriage to appellant, we hold the chancellor abused his discretion in finding that none of the bonus was marital property. Therefore, we reverse and remand this cause on this point.”
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.