Hiram Barber v. Huldah a Barber by Her Next Friend George Cronkhite’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

148 federal appellate · 55 district · 168 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 652 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We disclaim altogether any jurisdiction in the courts of the United States upon the subject of divorce, or for the allowance of alimony, either as an original proceeding in chancery or as an incident to divorce a vinculo, or to one from bed and board.””

   27 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ankenbrandt Lr Sr v. A Richards · Morris v. Morris

2. “assume to regulate the domestic relations of society [or to] with a kind of inquisitorial authority, enter the habitations and even into the chambers and nurseries of private families, and inquire into and pronounce upon the morals and habits and affections or antipathies of the members of every household.... The Federal tribunals can have no power to control the duties or the habits of the different members of private families in their domestic intercourse.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ankenbrandt Lr Sr v. A Richards · Ankenbrandt Ex Rel. L. R. v. Richards

3. ““And, answering that question, not only by the light of reason, but by the authoritative force of the ruling in the Barber Case, which had prevailed for so many years, and by the reasoning expressed in the Lynde Case we think the conclusion is inevitable that the Lynde Case cannot be held to have overruled the Barber Case, and therefore that the two cases must be interpreted in harmony, one with the other, and that on so doing it results: First, that, generally speaking, where a decree is rendered for alimony and is made payable in future installments, the right to such installments becomes absolute and vested upon becoming due, and is therefore protected by the full faith and credit clause, provided no modification of the decree has been made prior to the maturity of the installments, since, as declared in the Barber Case, ‘alimony decreed to a wife in a divorce of separation from bed and board is as much a debt of record, until the decree has been recalled, as any other judgment for money is.’ Second, that this general rule, however, does not obtain where, by the law of the state in which a judgment for future alimony is rendered, the right to demand and receive such future alimony is discretionary with the court which rendered the decree, to such an extent that no absolute or vested right attaches to receive the installments ordered by the decree to be paid, even although no application to annul or modify the decree in respect to alimony had been made prior to the installm”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sistare v. Sistare · Boyer v. Andrews