McDermott v. Dougherty’s Empirical Analysis
2005
Citation profile
78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 79 later decisions — most recently December 2024 · most notably Harvey v. Marshall (2005), Koshko v. Haining (2007)
78 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 Santosky v. Kramer · Stanley v. Illinois · Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Troxel v. Granville · Meyer v. State of Nebraska
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 79 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"[U]nder circumstances in which there is no finding of parental unfitness, the requirements of a parent’s employment, such that he is required to be away at sea, or otherwise appropriately absent from the State for a period of time, and for which time he or she made appropriate arrangements for the care of the child, do not constitute 'extraordinary or exceptional circumstances' to support the awarding of custody to a third party."”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“[ 1] the length of time the child has been away from the biological parent, [2] the age of the child when care was assumed by the third party, [3] the possible emotional effect on the child of a change of custody, [4] the period of time which elapsed before the parent sought to reclaim the child, [5] the nature and strength of the ties between the child and the third party custodian, [6] the intensity and genuineness of the parent’s desire to have the child, [7] the stability and certainty as to the child’s future in the custody of the parent.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[I]n private custody actions involving private third-parties where the parents are fit, absent extraordinary (i.e. exceptional) circumstances, the constitutional right is the ultimate determinative factor; and only if the parents are unfit or extraordinary circumstances exist is the “best interests of the child” test to be considered!)]”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.