Merrill v. Merrill’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently November 1996 · most notably Spingola v. Spingola (1978), Unser v. Unser (1974)
26 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 Fox v. Doak · Martinez v. Martinez · Urzua v. Urzua · Kerley v. Kerley · Kotrola v. Kotrola
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In a proceeding to modify a provision for the custody of minor children, the burden is on the moving party to satisfy the court that circumstances have so changed as to justify the modification. Every presumption is in favor of the reasonableness of the original decree. Kerley v. Kerley, 69 N.M. 291 , 366 P.2d 141 (1961).””
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.