State v. Watson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]hese paternity articles being substantive legislation are not retroactively applicable to the instant case.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State Through H. & H. Resources Admin. v. Essex · Succession of Sanders

2. “"Illegitimate children, who have not been legally acknowledged, may be allowed to prove their paternal descent. C.C. Art. 208. In the case where the proof of paternal descent is authorized by the preceeding article, the proof may be made in either of the following ways: 1. By all kinds of private writings, in which the father may have acknowledged the bastard as his child, or may have called him so; 2. When the father, either in public or in private, has acknowledged him as his child, or has called him so in conversation, or has caused him to be educated as such; 3. When the mother of the child was known as living in a state of concubinage with the father, and resided as such in his house at the time when the child was conceived. Art. 209. The oath of the mother, supported by proof of the cohabitation of the reputed father with her, out of his house, is not sufficient to establish natural paternal descent, if the mother be known as a woman of dissolute manners, or as having had an unlawful connection with one or more men (other than the man whom she declares to be the father of the child) either before of since the birth of the child. Art. 210”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 420 So. 2d 990 - La Pierre v. Gibson