Williams v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 10 district · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 334 later decisions — most recently January 2016 · most notably Harrell v. Sharp (1985), Shaver v. Shaver (1984)
40 federal appellate · 10 district · 16 state decisions — followed in 12 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
Applies 11 U.S.C. § 523
Relies on Pauley v. Spong · Kathleen Poolman v. William F. Poolman, Bankrupt · Lineberry v. Lineberry (In Re Lineberry) · Jensen v. Jensen (In Re Jensen)
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 334 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Though we of course regard the decisions of the state courts with deference, bankruptcy courts are not bound by state laws that define an item as maintenance or property settlement, nor are they bound to accept a divorce decree’s characterization of an award as maintenance or a property settlement.””
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Draper v. Draper · Adams v. Zentz
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.