Soto v. Vandeventer’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
2 district · 51 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 53 later decisions — most recently June 1993 · most notably Unkle v. Unkle (1986), Johnson v. Johnson (1986)
2 district · 51 state decisions — followed in 11 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 33 Cal. 2d 315 - Zaragosa v. Craven · McFadden v. Santa Ana, Orange, & Tustin Street Railway · Fredrickson & Watson Construction Co v. Boyd · Franklin v. Franklin · Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Dunn
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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * The physical injury to the spouse, the pain and suffering of the spouse therefrom is an injury to the spouse as an individual. If the spouse also suffers monetary loss to separate property or from inability to pursue allowable separate projects, that also is a loss to the spouse separately and as an individual. But on the other hand, if the injury deprives the marital community of the earnings or services of the spouse, that is an injury to the marital community; likewise there is loss to the community where the community funds are expended for hospital and medical expenses, etc. Since the husband is usually the breadwinner, contributing definite earnings, the loss to the marital community resulting from an injury to him is more obvious and more easily calculable in monetary figures. Therefore, there is usually little question that an injury depriving the community wholly or partly of his earnings is an injury to the community. If the wife is contributing earnings to the marital community, any injury interrupting or lowering these earnings is equally, as in the case of the husband, an injury to the community, and a cause of action for such injury is property of the community. This has been recognized even in a state where the statute makes damages resulting from personal injury to the wife the separate property of the wife. Even if the wife is not contributing earnings to the marital community, her services are a definite asset of the marital community, and the commun”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““Under the majority doctrine, if the wife were riding a horse she had brought to the marriage and some driver of a motor vehicle negligently struck her and the horse, throwing both into a wire fence, breaking the leg of each and also disfiguring them, the cause of action for the damage to the horse would belong to the wife, but that for the injury to her would belong to the community and the husband would receive one half of the proceeds of a judgment.” Id., 245 P.2d at 832 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Jurek v. Jurek · Kesler v. Pabst““The cause of action for the damages to the community for medical expenses, loss of services to the community, as well as loss of earnings, if any, of the wife still belongs to the community, and the husband as its head is the proper party to bring such an action against one who wrongfully injures the wife.””
2 later decisions 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.