42 Md. App. 596 - Wenger v. Wenger’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably Domingues v. Johnson (1991), State v. Wiegmann (1998)
70 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 Swisher v. Brady · Bar Ass'n v. Marshall · 12 Md. App. 684 - Walker v. State · Rand v. Rand · Matter of Anderson
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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"A given set of facts does not lead mechanically to a single, automatic disposition but may support a range of discretionary dispositions. When an appellate court, absent clear error, defers to a trial court, it defers not only to the fact-finding but to any legitimate verdict, disposition or judgment emanating from that fact-finding.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““A chancellor may defer to the master on such first-level facts as that a husband makes $50,000 a year; the yearly orthodontia bill is $1,500; the rent is $300 a month; the bank account of thus and so is thus and so. On the other hand, such second-level, conclusory 'facts’ as the wife’s ultimate need or the husband’s ultimate ability to pay are dispositional in nature and are the ultimate province of the chancellor.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If the chancellor had no choice but to affirm the recommendation of the master (or his finding of the ultimate, conclusory fact which is distinguishable from the recommendation) unless it was “clearly erroneous,” this would be the forbidden delegation of the judicial function. That this may never be done was made clear for this Court by Judge Morton in Ellis v. Ellis, 19 Md.App. 361, 365 , 311 A.2d 428 : “Litigants ... in all judicial proceedings, are entitled to have their cause determined ultimately by a duly qualified judge of a court of competent jurisdiction. Md. Const., Art. IV, § 1; MD.Code, Art. 26, § 30; Md.Rule 71a. While the system of resorting to Masters is one of long standing and undoubtedly has salutary effects resulting in the more expeditious dispatch of the judicial process, the system cannot supplant the ultimate role of judges in the judicial process itself.””
2 later decisions 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.