Lewelling v. Lewelling’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
123 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 123 later decisions — most recently June 2019 · most notably Dolcefino v. Randolph (2000), In the Interest of V.L.K. (2000)
123 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Texas Court of Appeals, 8th District (El Paso))
Relationships
Relies on Garza v. Alviar · Kindred v. Con/Chem, Inc. · Legate v. Legate · Stafford v. Stafford · State Ex Rel. Wood v. Deaton
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 123 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[U]nless the court finds that appointment of the parent or parents would not be in the best interest of the child because the appointment would significantly impair the child's physical health or emotional development, a parent shall be appointed sole managing conservator or both parents shall be appointed as joint managing conservators of the child.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he nonparent must affirmatively prove by a preponderance of the evidence that appointment of the parent as managing conservator would significantly impair the child, either physically or emotionally. [Section 153.131] thus requires the nonparent to offer evidence of specific actions or omissions of the parent that demonstrate an award of custody to the parent would result in physical or emotional harm to the child.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage“[section] 153.131, Texas Family Code contemplates that the environment which ‘significantly impairs the child’s physical health or emotional development' must be the product of some act or omission on the part of the natural parent,” which we consider to be a blatant misstatement of the law. We concur with Justice Carr’s dissent insofar as it applies to this case. In response to the majority, Justice Carr wrote: [W]hile I agree with the majority that our record reflects”
7 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. In Re GRW · Gray v. Shook
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.