Smith v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1924
Citation profile
50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently December 2003 · most notably Dunlap v. Dunlap (1930), Mesite v. Kirchenstein (1929)
50 state decisions — followed in 16 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 Hewlett v. George · Roller v. Roller · McKelvey v. McKelvey · Small Ex Rel. Balthis v. Morrison · State ex rel. Williams v. Ellis
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the one charged with the tortious acts was the stepmother of the minor involved, and no showing appears that she stood in loco parentis to such minor at the time of the infliction of the injury on which the action is based.... True, the opinion in that case contains a discussion, which appears to indicate that a minor child, under certain extreme circumstances, might maintain an action against its parent for damages arising from the infliction of personal injuries, but so much of the opinion as appears to so hold is purely obiter dictum, as no such question was involved in that action.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“cruel, inhuman, excessive, unreasonable, unwarranted and malicious.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Barnes v. Barnes
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.