79 Md. App. 394 - Levitt v. Levitt’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
54 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably State v. Wiegmann (1998), 109 Md. App. 1 - Wagner v. Wagner (1996)
54 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 Hall v. State · 42 Md. App. 596 - Wenger v. Wenger · 50 Md. App. 437 - Jordan v. Jordan · Nagle v. Hooks · 31 Md. App. 58 - Sartoph v. Sartoph
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The custody of children should not be disturbed unless there is some strong reason affecting the welfare of the child. To justify a change in custody, a change in conditions must have occurred which affects the welfare of the child and not of the parents. The reason for this rule is that the stability provided by the continuation of a successful relationship with a parent who has been in day to day contact with a child generally far outweighs any alleged advantage which might accrue to the child as a result of a custodial change. In short, when all goes well with children, stability, not change, is in their best interests.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““Deference will be accorded to the facts as found by the Master, but this only applies to ‘first-level’ facts. First-level facts are those that answer the What?, Where? and How? questions. Deference is not accorded to ‘second-level’ facts or to recommendations____ Second-level facts are conclusions and inferences drawn from first-level facts. A first-level fact would be that one or both parents used drugs. A second-level fact would be that that use did or did not affect [the child]. A recommendation would be a change or lack of change of custody.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““The Master’s primary responsibility is to develop the first-level facts____ After establishing the factual record, the Master may then draw conclusions from the first-level facts and use these conclusions to make recommendations, which the Chancellor is free to disregard. It is the Chancellor’s responsibility, not the Master’s, to determine finally the parties’ rights. Simply put, the Master is a ministerial and not a judicial officer.””
2 later decisions 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.