Robertson v. Willis’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently April 2013 · most notably 39 Cal. 3d 751 - In Re Marriage of Buol (1985), 14 Cal. 4th 56 - Lezine v. Security Pacific Financial Services Inc. (1996)
4 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
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 5 Cal. 3d 1 - Sail'er Inn, Inc. v. Kirby · Rose v. State of California · W. B. Worthen Co. v. Thomas · Nichols v. Mitchell · Weinberg v. Weinberg
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“All retrospective legislation is not invalid merely because it operates as such. (See 5 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (8th ed.) Constitutional Law, § 282, p. 3571.) It will be invalid only if it deprives one of vested rights, which are bound to be respected or protected by the state, or if it impairs the obligations of contract.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.