Smith v. Mobley’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently August 2015
16 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 Marshall v. Reeves · Wible v. Wible · Marriage of Poret v. Martin · Marriage of Pea v. Pea · Walker v. Chatfield
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We recognize that there will always be changes in circumstances between the initial hearing and subsequent hearings-the child matures, parents may remarry, divorce, move, have more or less income than at the initial hearing, there may be other children added to the family through birth or remarriage that change the relationship of the child to the custodial parent, and so forth. But what life is all about is growth and change. However, these changes, which we take for granted, do not automatically trigger the right of a court to re-examine whether or not one parent might be preferred as a custodian over another, as is the test at the initial hearing. Thus, mere changes that occur as life goes on do not, standing alone, justify a modification of custody. What we look for when we review the trial court's action is evidence of a decisive and substantial change in circumstances which either establishes the unfitness of the custodial parent or affects the welfare of the child so that it renders the original custodial order unreasonable.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Hoos v. Hoos · Lamb v. Wenning“(a) If an individual who has been awarded custody of a child ... intends to move to a residence ... that is outside Indiana or one hundred (100) miles or more from the individual's county of residence, that individual must file a notice of intent with the clerk of the court.... (b) Upon request of either party, the court shall set the matter down for a hearing for the purposes of reviewing and modifying if appropriate the custody, visitation, and support orders. The court shall take into account the distance involved in the proposed change of residence and the hardship and expense involved for noncustodial parents to exercise such rights, in determining whether to modify the custody, visitation, and support orders.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Hoos v. Hoos“The factors which are to be considered when determining whether to modify custody when the custodial parent indicates her intent to move out of state include the distance involved in the proposed change of residence and the hardship and expense involved for the noneustodial parent to exercise his visitation rights.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.