De Godey v. Godey’s Empirical Analysis
1870
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 3 district · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1982 · most notably Continental Baking Co. v. Katz (1968), United States v. Robbins (1926)
1 federal appellate · 3 district · 48 state decisions — followed in 11 states
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 Van Maren v. Johnson · Galland v. Galland · Searcy v. Grow · Beard v. Knox · RICKETT v. JOHNSON
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It [community property] accrued to her, as having been acquired in part by her own efforts, before the decree of divorce was rendered; that decree as rendered did not deprive her of it. The effect of the decree, acting upon her personal status, was to remove from her the disability, theretofore, as we have said, almost total, to sue concerning it, or to interfere in any wise in its control. Under the operation of that decree, too, the appellant, ceasing to be ‘husband,’ was no longer the head of the community,., which had itself ceased to exist, and, as a consequence, he lost the exclusive control and the somewhat absolute power to dispose of the community property; thenceforth the parties stood upon equal grounds in that respect, and neither could wholly exclude the other from a participation in the property and its present disposition.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“" The theory upon which the right of the . wife is founded (as we said in Galland v. Galland, 38 Cal. 265 ) is that the common property was acquired by the joint efforts of the husband and wife, and should be divided between them if the marriage tie is dissolved either by the death of the husband or by the decree of the court, etc. Her mere right in the community property is as well defined and ascertained in contemplation of law, even during the marriage, as is that of the husband. It is true that the law confers upon the latter the authority to manage and control it during the existence of the marriage, and the power to sell it for the benefit of the community, but not, as we have seen, so as to defraud the community of it.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“"It belongs to the matrimonial community, and not less to the wife than to the husband. It is true that the interest of the wife therein pending the marriage has been termed 'amere expectancy’ (Van Maren v. Johnson, 15 Cal. 808 ); but while, perhaps, no other technical designation would so nearly define its character, it is, at the same time, an interest so vested in her, as that husband cannot deprive her of it by his will (Beard v. Knox, 5 Cal. 256 , 63 Am. Dec. 125 ), nor voluntarily alienate it for the mere purpose of divesting her of her claims to it. ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.