Becker v. King’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

42 state decisions

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.

1. “Nunc pro tunc means `now for then' and when applied to the entry of a legal order or judgment it normally does not refer to a new or fresh (de novo) decision, as when a decision is made after the death of a party, but relates to a ruling or action actually previously made or done but concerning which for some reason the record thereof is defective or omitted. The later record making does not itself have a retroactive effect but it constitutes the later evidence of a prior effectual act. * * * * * * [I]t was also a proper use of a nunc pro tunc order to establish a final and appealable written record of the court's previous decision orally rendered. To correct the form of the first nunc pro tunc judgment was also a proper use of the second nunc pro tunc — `to make the record speak the truth.'”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Luhrs v. State · State v. Ortiz, No. Cr 6-351435 (Mar. 19, 1992)

2. “"Aside from its definition in the Florida Appellate Rules, rendition of a judgment generally refers to the judicial act of the court in giving, returning, pronouncing, or announcing, orally or in writing, its conclusions and decision on the matter submitted to it for adjudication, and is distinct from the signing of a subsequent formal judgment and from the later recording or filing of the writing or the entry of judgment in the minutes of the court. Aside from the effect of a statute or court rule requiring the judgment to be written for particular purposes, a judgment exists as such when it is thus rendered and is valid and binding as between the parties and their privies, although the only competent evidence of such act is a memorial or record in the form of a written and signed judgment or a clerk's minute book entry." [emphasis supplied]”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 764 So. 2d 578 - Gaines v. Sayne · 371 So. 2d 696 - McNitt v. Osborne

3. “A purely divorce suit is sometimes made an exception to this general principle of law permitting rendition and entry of a nunc pro tunc judgment after death because, it is said, the death itself has already terminated the marriage relationship. If so, the reason for this exception does not apply in this case because the marriage was not ended by death but by the written partial final judgment of January 22, 1973, and the matters involved in the appealed judgment relate only to matters collateral to, and made necessary and appropriate for legal decision by, the adjudication of dissolution.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 764 So. 2d 578 - Gaines v. Sayne · 648 So. 2d 712 - Fernandez v. Fernandez