Wilson v. Wilson’s Empirical Analysis
1889
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently July 2000
11 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Zoellner v. Zoellner
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The bill and answer below were simple divorce proceedings, aimed at no relief not dependent on divorce. In such a case there can be no decree after death has separated the parties. The doctrine of relation does not apply in such a case. There must be living parties, or there can be no relationship to be divorced. Zoellner v. Zoellner, 46 Mich. 511 ( 9 N. W. 831 ). It follows that, as the parties were still husband and wife when the husband died, she has all the rights and conditions of any other widow. It is fallacious to claim that a decree apparently rendered during complainant’s life, and therefore apparently valid, cannot be appealed from. An appeal lies from every decree in chancery which purports to be final, and its illegality is a conclusive reason why it should be reversed, as this decree must be.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Heck v. Bailey
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.