Keltner v. Keltner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

29 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[p]rior to Stanhope, and at the time of [the alimony order at issue in Keltner], lawyers and judges knew that an exhus-band could not be imprisoned for failure to pay alimony in Missouri. There is no justification in law or equity to utilize an enforcement method (imprisonment) as to court orders made when imprisonment was not available as a coercive measure at the time the order was entered. The resulting inequities are certainly predictable and readily apparent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Coyle v. Coyle

2. “[f]rom the time that Coughlin ... was decided until our decision in Stanhope on March 8, 1976, the law of Missouri was that the constitutional prohibition against imprisonment for debt prohibited the jailing of a person for contempt where the contempt was premised upon the failure to pay an alimony award.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Coyle v. Coyle

3. “One of the most important factors considered by the courts “in deciding whether and to what extent a judicially changed rule of law should be given retroactive effect” is “the degree to which the prior rule may have been justifiably relied on”. Annot. 10 A.L.R.3d 1371 , 1378 (1966).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sumners v. Sumners