Westfall v. Westfall’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently December 2024
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 Kirby v. Planning Board of Review · DeMilo v. City of West Haven · State v. Hoeplinger · Holmes v. Holmes · State v. Nesmith
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.
“[P]leadings have their place in our system of jurisprudence. While they are not held to the strict and artificial standard that once prevailed, we still cling to the belief, even in these iconoclastic days, that no orderly administration of justice is possible without them.... The purpose of a complaint or counterclaim is to limit the issues at trial, and such pleadings are calculated to prevent surprise.... It is fundamental in our law that the right of a [party] to recover is limited to the allegations in his [pleading].... Facts found but not averred cannot be made the basis for a recovery.... Thus, it is clear that [t]he court is not permitted to decide issues outside of those raised in the pleadings.... A judgment in the absence of written pleadings defining the issues would not merely be erroneous, it would be void.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[a] judgment cannot be founded on a finding of facts not in issue, although they may have been shown in evidence to which no proper objection was taken”
1 later decision 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.