Speck v. Dausman’s Empirical Analysis
1879
Citation profile
23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently April 1955
23 state decisions — followed in 14 states
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 Muckenburg v. Holler · Belden v. Munger
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is quite settled that contracts between husband and wife, so framed as to have effect only on condition that a divorce should be granted, are contrary to public policy, and will not be enforced by the courts. Their tendency is to interest the party to be benefited in procuring or permitting a divorce. . . . Such an agreement is regarded in law as a fraud upon the court and upon the administration of justice, and no action will lie upon it. [Citing cases.] The fact that the papers in this case were in escrow, and the deeds and agreement were not to be delivered by the person in whose hands they were left, until a decree was obtained according to the terms of the agreement, in no way changes the illegal aspect of the transaction. The delivery had a relation back to the date of the agreement, and the pretended contract which the circuit court was asked to enforce was made, not after the divorce, but whilst the suit was pending.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Jones v. Jones““Courts will never lend themselves to the enforcement of a contract intended to promote the dissolution of marriage. The wife could not contract for alimony whilst the marriage existed; and such pretended agreements, if they are to have any force, must be subjected to the examination of the divorce court, and derive their sanction from a decree made by the court with a knowledge of the facts. If fair and equitable, the arrangement between the parties will receive the sanction of the court. If concealed from the court, their tendency is to produce collusion.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Delbridge v. Beach
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.