Pavan v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 state decisions

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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “same-sex couples are denied the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 324 Mich. App. 251 - Anita L Sheardown v. Janine Guastella · Boquet v. Boquet

2. “The Arkansas Supreme Court's decision, we conclude, denied married same-sex couples access to the "constellation of benefits that the Stat[e] ha[s] linked to marriage." Obergefell , [576 U.S. at ----, 135 S.Ct. at 2601 ]. As already explained, when a married woman in Arkansas conceives a child by means of artificial insemination, the State will-indeed, must-list the name of her male spouse on the child's birth certificate. See [Ark. Code Ann.] § 20-18-401(f)(1) ; see also § 9-10-201; supra , at 2077. And yet state law, as interpreted by the court below, allows Arkansas officials in those very same circumstances to omit a married woman's female spouse from her child's birth certificate. See [ Smith v. Pavan, 2016 Ark. 437 , 11-12, 505 S.W.3d 169 (2016) ]. As a result, same-sex parents in Arkansas lack the same right as opposite-sex parents to be listed on a child's birth certificate, a document often used for important transactions like making medical decisions for a child or enrolling a child in school. See [Petition for Certiorari, pp.] 5-7 (listing situations in which a parent might be required to present a child's birth certificate). Obergefell proscribes such disparate treatment. As we explained there, a State may not "exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples." [ Obergefill , 576 U.S. at ----, 135 S. Ct. at 2605 ]. Indeed, in listing those terms and conditions-the "rights, benefits, and responsibilities" to whic”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 324 Mich. App. 251 - Anita L Sheardown v. Janine Guastella

3. “Arkansas has thus chosen to make its birth certificates more than a mere marker of biological relationships: ... [giving] married parents a form of legal recognition that is not available to unmarried parents. [As such,] Arkansas may not, consistent with Obergefell , deny married same-sex couples that recognition.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 239 So. 3d 1074 - Chaisson v. State