Underhill v. Underhill’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In point of error three appellant asserts the trial court erred in finding the effective date of the divorce was the date of signing of the judgment, not the date the judgment was rendered orally by the judge from the bench. Appellant urges the agreement could not be incident to divorce because the divorce was rendered on February 4, 1975, while the property settlement agreement was not signed until April 8, two months later. The divorce decree was signed by the judge on April 14. Because the agreement was not made incident to divorce, appellant states it is thus enforceable upon its face. We find the agreement to be enforceable. We hold there was no final judgment of divorce until April 14, 1975, when all issues and parties of the case were disposed of. See Garrison v. Texas Commerce Bank, 560 S.W.2d 451, 453 (Tex.Civ.App. —Houston [1st Dist.] 1977, writ ref’d n.r. e.). It is error for a trial judge to sever the issue of divorce, Hailey v. Hailey, 160 Tex. 372 , 331 S.W.2d 299 (1960), and until the property of the parties has been disposed of no final divorce judgment exists. In re Johnson, 595 S.W.2d 900 (Tex.Civ. App. — Amarillo 1980, no writ). Thus even though the parties were actually divorced as of February 4, 1975, the date the judge orally rendered the judgment, Dunn v. Dunn, 439 S.W.2d 830 (Tex.1969), the judgment was not then final, we hold because the property of the parties had not been disposed of. We hold the date of the final judgment of divorce is controlling ”

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