Shapiro v. Shapiro’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]e have uncovered nothing in the legislative history that indicates that the General Assembly ever focused on the issue with which we are here concerned. Thus, in order to construe the statute on the issue here, we examine the General Assembly’s purpose in enacting it.... [T]he statute’s immediate purpose was to permit court modification of contractual support, unless the parties otherwise agreed, by eliminating, in the modification context, the distinction between technical alimony and contractual support. The ultimate purpose was to prevent the unintended results under separation agreements that were produced by the technical alimony-contractual support dichotomy. If the statutory exception to the general rule of modifia-bility is read to require a blanket provision, making non-modifiable each and every provision in a package of provisions relating to spousal support, then the evil that the General Assembly sought to cure by § 8-103(c)(2) is recreated. The only difference is the nature of the contractual intent that is frustrated____We can discern no legislative purpose to substitute one form of frustration of contractual intent for another in a statute intended to fulfill expectations based on the parties’ agreement. Nor do we discern in this statute, that was intended to abolish the technical alimony-contractual support distinction, an intent to perpetuate the all or nothing approach to modifiability that characterized that prior law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 146 Md. App. 142 - Fuge v. Fuge

2. “§ 8-105. Power of court to enforce or modify provisions. (b) Modification—The court may modify any provision of a deed, agreement, or settlement that is: (1) incorporated, whether or not merged, into a divorce decree; and (2) subject to modification under § 8-103 of this subtitle.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 136 Md. App. 203 - Langston v. Langston