6 Cal. 3d 461 - Waite v. Waite’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
194 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 207 later decisions — most recently March 2012 · most notably 15 Cal. 3d 838 - In Re Marriage of Brown (1976), 10 Cal. 3d 592 - In Re Marriage of Fithian (1974)
194 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 Hanson v. Denckla · Harris v. Balk · Vanderbilt v. Vanderbilt · 3 Cal. 3d 32 - Phillipson v. Board of Administration, Public Employees' Retirement System · 60 Cal. 2d 355 - Benson v. City of Los Angeles
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 207 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The state's concern, then, lies in provision for the subsistence of the employee and his spouse, not in the extension of benefits to such persons or organizations the spouse may select as the objects of her bounty. Once the spouse dies, of course, her need for subsistence ends, and the state's interest in her sustenance reaches a coincident completion. When this termination occurs, the state's concern narrows to the sustenance of the retired employee; its pension payments must necessarily be directed to that sole objective. We conclude that the statutory design for judges' pensions negates the spouse's contention that her legatees should inherit pension payments payable for the balance of the judge's life. Whatever community interest the wife may claim, it cannot transcend the legislation upon which the pension itself rests. The legislation grants to the wife, not an inheritable legacy, but a continuing economic protection for her lifetime, a state-secured provision for subsistence.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The plan of payment of the pension— whether fixed or reflective of subsequent salary increases in the relevant position — does not change the nature of the right to the pension. The right flows from the services rendered by the employee during marriage; the manner of expression of the right does not distort it or alter its community characteristic.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Cooper v. Cooper“An intangible, unlike real or tangible personal property, has no physical characteristics that would serve as a basis for assigning it to a particular locality. The location assigned to it depends on what action is to be taken with reference to it.”
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.