Morrill v. Morrill’s Empirical Analysis
1910
Citation profile
117 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 119 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2016 · most notably Finlay v. Finlay (1925), Kovacs v. Brewer (1958)
117 state decisions — followed in 22 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 John Haddock v. Harriet Haddock · Kelsey v. Green · Stetson v. Stetson · Lyon v. Lyon · Lessee of Barton v. Heirs of Morris
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 119 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he fact that the order made does not conform to the prayer of either the petition or cross-petition furnishes no objection to its validity. It was the court's duty to take such action as in its judgment the situation called for. In the performance of this duty it was unhampered, either in its inquiry or in its decision, by the allegations or prayers of the parents. While they appeared before the court in the outward guise of parties litigant, their position was not that which is ordinarily occupied by parties in actions to determine their rights, and the respondent in urging this objection makes the mistake of attempting to apply the rules of pleading to the proceeding.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“a finding of changed conditions is one easily made when a court is so inclined”
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.