Matthews v. Britton’s Empirical Analysis
303 F.2d 408 · 1962
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently May 2006
6 federal appellate · 6 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 294 · 33 U.S.C. § 901 · 33 U.S.C. § 903
Relies on Hoage v. Murch Bros. Const. Co. · Thomas v. Murphy · United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Britton · Parrella v. Parrella
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[AJs long as the impediment of Ernestine’s lawful marriage to Johnson existed, she and Henry Matthews could not lawfully be or become husband and wife. However, it is settled that if parties agree to be husband and wife in ignorance [of] an impediment to lawful matrimony, then the removal of that impediment results in a common-law marriage between the parties if they have continued to cohabit and live together as husband and wife. Similarly, this Court has held the same result obtains even if the parties have knowledge of the impediment at the time that they agree to be married. It is not to be expected that parties once having agreed to be married will deem it necessary to agree to do so again when an earlier marriage is terminated or some other bar to union is eliminated.”
2 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.