Tarver v. Tarver’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

88 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 89 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““An evaluation of the legal rights of the parties must begin with that part of Article 4619, Sec. 1, Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes, which provides: ‘ * * * all the effects which the husband and wife possess at the time the marriage may be dissolved shall be regarded as common effects or gains, unless the contrary be satisfactorily proved. * * * ’ The plain wording of the statute creates a re- buttable presumption that all property possessed by a husband and wife when their marriage is dissolved is their community property and imposes the burden upon one asserting otherwise to prove the contrary by satisfactory evidence. Wilson v. Wilson, 145 Tex. 607 , 201 S.W.2d 226, 227 (1947); Chapman v. Allen, 15 Tex. 278, 283 (1855). The general rule is that to discharge the burden imposed by the statute, a spouse, or one claiming through a spouse, must trace and clearly identify property claimed as separate property, Schmeltz v. Garey, 49 Tex. 49, 61 (1878); Chapman v. Allen, 15 Tex. 278, 283 (1855); Lindemood v. Evans, Tex.Civ.App., 166 S.W.2d 774 (1942), writ refused; and that when the evidence shows that separate and community property have been so commingled as to defy resegregation and identification, the burden is not discharged and the statutory presumption that the entire mass is community controls its disposition.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Amarillo National Bank v. Liston · Waheed v. Waheed