Mize v. Sims’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently February 2004
19 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 Commissioner v. Rickenberg · Menees v. Cowgill · Drake v. Drake · Taylor v. Coberly · Rumans Ex Rel. Jackson v. Lighthizer
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Equitable adoption in this state is founded upon well established equitable principles by which equity may grant specific enforcement of a contract to adopt, or declare, in a proper case, that a defendant is estopped to deny the adoption agreed to be made. To warrant a decree of equitable adoption, it is not indispensable that a contract to adopt be shown by direct evidence, rather such an agreement may be inferred from the acts, conduct, and admissions of the adopting parent. “If, therefore, the statements, admissions, and conduct of the adopting parent ‘are such as to furnish clear and satisfactory proof that an agreement of adoption must have existed, then the agreement may be found as an inference from that evidence.’ ” Furthermore, “Where one takes a child into his home as his own, thereby voluntarily assuming the status of parent, and by reason thereof obtains from the child the love, affection, companionship, and services which ordinarily accrue to a parent, he is thereafter estopped to assert that he did not adopt the child in the manner provided by law” provided that “justice, equity and good faith” compel a decree of equitable adoption. One who seeks a decree of equitable adoption has the onerous task of producing evidence so clear, cogent, and convincing as to leave no reasonable doubt in the chancellor’s mind. (Emphasis and citations omitted)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“has been recognized to be that it is so inequitable and unjust to allow one to fail to comply with an agreement made with the parent or custodian of a child to adopt it, when he has taken the child at such an age that it had no will or choice of its own in the matter, that, after the child has performed everything contemplated by the relation provided for, the intended adoptive parent or his heirs will be estopped to deny an adoption.”
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.