Merrill v. Merrill’s Empirical Analysis
1962
Citation profile
147 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 147 later decisions — most recently July 2023 · most notably Beaulieu v. Elliott (1967), RLR v. State (1971)
147 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 Kelley v. Everglades Drainage District · United States v. Forness · Ruff v. Ruff · Keys v. United States · Irish v. United States
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 147 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the respective ages of the parties; their earning ability; the duration and conduct of each during the marriage; their station in life; the circumstances and necessities of each; their health and physical condition; their financial circumstances, including the time and manner of acquisition of the property in question, its value at the time and its income producing capacity if any.”
32 later decisions quote this exact passage“sufficiently detailed and explicit findings”
8 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Lewis v. Lewis · Gardner v. Harris“(a) In all actions tried upon the facts without a jury or with an advisory jury, the court shall find the facts specially and state separately its conclusions of law thereon and judgment shall be entered pursuant to Rule 58.... Requests for findings are not necessary for purposes of review. Findings of fact shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses. The findings of a master, to the extent that the court adopts them, shall be considered as the findings of the court.... Findings of fact and conclusions of law are unnecessary on decisions of motions under Rules 12 or 56 or any other motion except as provided in Rule 41(b).”
7 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.