56 Md. App. 1 - Boothe v. Boothe’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently January 2007
18 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 Santosky v. Kramer · Stanley v. Illinois · Watts v. Indiana · Ross v. Hoffman · Davis v. Davis
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he best interest of the child standard is always determinative in child custody disputes. When the dispute is between a biological parent and a third party, it is presumed that the child’s best interest is subserved by custody in the parent. That presumption is overcome and such custody will be denied if (a) the parent is unfit to have custody, or (b) if there are such exceptional circumstances as make such custody detrimental to the best interest of the child. Therefore, in parent-third party disputes over custody, it is only upon a determination by the equity court that the parent is unfit or that there are exceptional circumstances which make custody in the parent detrimental to the best interest of the child, that the court need inquire into the best interest of the child in order to make a proper custodial disposition.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[T]he best interest of the children is the paramount fact. Rights of father and mother sink into insignificance before that____ [W]hen new ties have been formed and a certain current given to the child’s life and thought, much attention should be paid to the probabilities of a benefit to the child from the change. It is an obvious fact, that ties of blood weaken, and ties of companionship strengthen, by lapse of time; and the prosperity and welfare of the child depend on the number and strength of these ties, as well as on the ability to do all which the promptings of these ties compel.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“When viewed in light of uprooting their presently customary and stable environment and rural freedom in exchange for the unaccustomed confinement of a trailer park, supervised by a mother who has been for two years a looked-forward-to-visitor, the transition cannot be said to be undetrimental as a matter of law.”
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.