53 Ala. App. 702 - White v. Appleton’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently October 2007
17 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 49 Ala. App. 658 - Borsdorf v. Mills · Harris v. Harris · Alsbrooks v. Barnes
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The real issue presented by the appeal is whether a mother should be denied custody of her small child when she has not been shown to be unfit. “It appears there can be no specific answer to the question. Every case must be determined by its own facts with the primary goal being the best interest and welfare of the child. Harris v. Harris, 251 Ala. 687 , 39 So.2d 232 . There is little problem in recognizing a parent’s paramount right to the custody of minor children when such parent is not shown to be unfit and has fulfilled parental obligations of providing and caring for a child during its life. It is when a parent, though not shown presently to be morally, physically or financially unfit, has failed totally or in some material manner to fulfill the responsibilities of a parent according to reasonable standards that the conflict between so-called parental rights and the best interest of the child arises. Such was the matter for resolution in the case of Borsdorf v. Mills, 49 Ala.App. 658 , 275 So.2d 338 . The principle of the best interest of the child was determined to outweigh parental rights in that case. . . .” (Emphasis ours)”
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.