Davies Adoption Case’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 90 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 93 later decisions — most recently December 2015 · most notably In Re William L. (1978), In Re Adoption of McCray (1975)
3 federal appellate · 90 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 Hazuka's Case · Weinbach's Appeal · 47 N.J. Eq. 302 - Winans v. Luppie · Toplis & Harding, Inc. v. Murphy · 104 Pa. Super. 196 - In Re Adoption of Elizabeth McCann
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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Abandonment is not an ambulatory thing the legal effects of which a delinquent parent may dissipate at will by the expression of a desire for the return of the discarded child . . . [0]nce abandonment has been proven with required legal sufficiency, the welfare of the abandoned child is the primary and paramount concern of the court unaffected by the desire or caprice of the abandoning parent.””
4 later decisions 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.