Keller v. O'Brien’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently August 2018
15 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 382 So. 2d 1197 - Canakaris v. Canakaris · Viglione v. Viglione · Schuler v. Schuler · Cary v. Cary · Gottsegen v. Gottsegen
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Instead, the recipient spouse’s remarriage makes a prima facie case which requires the court to end alimony, absent proof of some extraordinary circumstances, established by the recipient spouse, warranting its continuation. This approach affirms the general principle that alimony should terminate on the recipient spouse’s remarriage, but also allows courts to override this principle on evidence produced showing certain rare and exceptional circumstances. Under this prima facie approach, alimony would survive remarriage only in those rare situations which involve an on-going and legitimate need for continuation of alimony payments. For example, if a remarried recipient spouse becomes a public charge, a judge may order the former spouse to continue making alimony payments. Although this may burden the payor spouse, we believe that he or she should not be relieved of the obligation to pay alimony if the result would be to burden the taxpayers of this [state] with support of the remarried recipient spouse. In so holding, we recognize that, except in extraordinary circumstances, it is “illogical and unreasonable” that a spouse should receive support from a current spouse and a former spouse at the same time. The new spouse does, after all, assume a duty to support on marriage. We believe that “the remarriage should serve as an election between the support provided by the alimony award and the legal obligation of support embodied in the new marital relationship.” Absent extraordin”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“This court has affirmed the termination of alimony payments on the recipient spouse's remarriage where the parties included automatic termination provisions in an agreement found to survive the divorce judgment”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Wolff v. Wolff
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.