325 Pa. Super. 39 - In Re Donna W.’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 72 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 74 later decisions — most recently January 2006 · most notably In Re DA (2002), 344 Pa. Super. 49 - Constant A. v. Paul C.A. (1985)
2 federal appellate · 72 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 Kovacs v. Cooper · Commonwealth v. Story · In Re William L. · Commonwealth Ex Rel. Spriggs v. Carson · 249 Pa. Super. 274 - In Re Custody of Hernandez
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 74 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[0]ur law has long recognized that the scope of review of an appellate court reviewing a custody matter is of the broadest type ... Thus, an appellate court is not bound by deductions or inferences made by a trial court from the facts found; ... nor must a reviewing court accept a finding which has no competent evidence to support it ... However ... this broader power of review was never intended to mean that an appelate court is free to nullify the factfinding function of the hearing judge ... [but, instead, is to remain] within the proper bounds of its review and [base a decision] upon its own independent deductions and inferences from the facts as found by the hearing judge.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“When the judge is hearing a dispute between the parents, or a parent, and a third party, ... [t]he question still is, what is in the child’s best interest? However, the parties do not start out even; the parents have a ‘prima facie right to custody,’ which will be forfeited only if ‘convincing reasons’ appear that the child’s best interest will be served by an award to the third party. Thus, even before proceedings start, the evidentiary scale is tipped, and tipped hard, to the parents’ side. What the judge must do, therefore, is first, hear all evidence relevant to the child’s best interest, and then, decide whether the evidence on behalf of the third party is weighty enough to bring the scale up to even, and down on the third party’s side.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The scope of our review is broad; we must accept the trial court's findings of fact, unless they are unsupported by the evidence, but on those facts we must make such order as our independent judgment persuades us right and justice dictate.”
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.