Quilloin v. Walcott’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
134 federal appellate · 33 district · 1,495 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,873 later decisions (42 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Santosky v. Kramer (1982), Troxel v. Granville (2000)
134 federal appellate · 33 district · 1,495 state decisions — followed in 49 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 Stanley v. Illinois · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Wisconsin v. Yoder · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur
Cited together with Stanley v. Illinois · Santosky v. Kramer · Lehr v. Robertson · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Caban v. Mohammed
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 1,873 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We have recognized on numerous occasions that the relationship between parent and child is constitutionally protected.”
118 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Stanley left unresolved the degree of protection a State must afford to the rights of an unwed father in a situation, such as that presented here, in which the countervailing interests are more substantial.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The court may grant an order terminating the relationship where it finds that termination of parental rights is in the best interests of the child and that one (1) or more of the following conditions exist: (a) The parent has abandoned the child, (b) The parent has neglected or abused the child, (c) The presumptive parent is not the biological parent of the child, (d) The parent is unable to discharge parental responsibilities and such inability will continue for a prolonged indeterminate period and will be injurious to the health, morals or well-being of the child, (e) The parent has been incarcerated and is likely to remain incarcerated for a substantial period of time during the child’s minority.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.