Nail v. Nail’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
68 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably 103 Wis. 2d 327 - Holbrook v. Holbrook (1981), Cearley v. Cearley (1976)
68 state decisions — followed in 27 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 Busby v. Busby · Francis v. Francis · Slack v. Suddoth · Randolph v. Graham · Hunt v. Street
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.
“did not possess value or constitute an asset separate and apart from his person, or from his individual ability to practice his profession. It would be extinguished in event of his death, or retirement, or disablement, as well as in the event of the sale of his practice or loss of his patients, whatever the cause.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Smith v. Smith · Taylor v. Taylor“... It has frequently been held that good will does not adhere to a business or profession dependent solely on the personal ability, skill, integrity, or other personal characteristics of the owner. According to other decisions, however, good will may exist in a professional as well as a commercial business, and may be sold together with the estate, and, irrespective of whether there is technically a good will adherent to a business or profession dependent on personal qualities of the owner, contracts disposing thereof coupled with an agreement that the seller would not compete, if otherwise valid, are enforced. In any case, an involuntary sale cannot be made of a good will based on professional reputation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The good will of the husband’s medical practice here . . . may not be characterized as an earned or vested right or one which fixes any benefit in any sum at any future time. That it would have value in the future is no more than an expectancy wholly dependent upon the continuation of existing circumstances. Accordingly, we hold that the good will of petitioner’s medical practice that may have accrued at the time of the divorce was not property in the estate of the parties; and that for this reason the award under attack [the division of good will as community property] was not within the authority and discretion vested in the trial court by Section 3.63 of the Texas Family Code.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Austin v. Austin
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.