320 Pa. Super. 372 - Witmayer v. Witmayer’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently August 2013 · most notably 394 Pa. Super. 30 - Zummo v. Zummo (1990), Karkkainen v. Kovalchuk (2006)
2 federal appellate · 30 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 Commonwealth Ex Rel. Spriggs v. Carson · Ellerbe v. Hooks · Albright v. Commonwealth Ex Rel. Fetters · 250 Pa. Super. 168 - Spells v. Spells · Com. Ex Rel. Myers v. Myers
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If informal custody agreements have no force and effect, then parents can engage in self-help, breach an agreement at will, and suffer no detriment. This would discourage orderly private settlements of disputes and potentially expose a child to greater instability, disruption and discord. The law looks with favor upon resolutions of custody disputes that are settled privately. Warman v. Warman, 294 Pa.Super. 285 , 439 A.2d 1203 (1982). It is desirable for divorcing parents to settle their differences without the intervention of the court system wherever possible. There are good reasons why these private agreements serve the best interests of the child: First, most parents genuinely love their children, and it is reasonable to assume that the children’s welfare is a vital consideration in the parents’ decision to resolve their dispute by agreement. One major reason that parents agree on custody is to spare their children the trauma inherent in an adversarial hearing. Second, parents have a better informational base upon which to make a decision about custody. The adversarial process is an inadequate means to assemble sufficient ‘facts’ to resolve custodial disputes satisfactorily. Third, it is difficult to protect a child from the painful pull of divided loyalties when his parents fail to agree. Parental agreements help to preserve an atmosphere of at least superficial peace between parents and thereby facilitate a much easier and more meaningful future relationship between th”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.