85 Ill. 2d 253 - Sears v. Sears’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
195 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 202 later decisions — most recently November 2025 · most notably 103 Ill. 2d 536 - Archer Daniels Midland Co. v. Barth (1984), 98 Ill. 2d 237 - People v. Kaeding (1983)
195 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 79 Ill. 2d 26 - Woodill v. Parke Davis & Co. · 44 Ill. 2d 412 - Deckard v. Joiner · 49 Ill. 2d 131 - Fultz v. Haugan · Ridgely v. Central Pipe Line Co. · 58 Ill. App. 3d 349 - Woodill v. Parke Davis & Co.
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 202 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Permitting successive post-judgment motions would tend to prolong the life of a lawsuitat a time when the efficient administration of justice demands a reduction in the number of cases pending in trial courtsand would lend itself to harassment. There must be finality, a time when the case in the trial court is really over and the loser must appeal or give up. Successive post-judgment motions interfere with that policy. And justice is not served by permitting the losing party to string out his attack on a judgment over a period of months, one argument at a time, or to make the first motion a rehearsal for the real thing the next month." Sears, 85 Ill.2d at 259 , 52 Ill.Dec. 608 , 422 N.E.2d 610 .”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The hearing on Gerald’s [the husband’s] motion did not concern the merits of the judgment; the participants did not ignore the judgment and start to retry the case, thereby implying by their conduct their consent to having the judgment set aside. On the contrary, the hearing was about whether the judgment should be set aside; and Conde [the wife] insisted it should not. Nothing in the proceeding was inconsistent with the judgment. Nothing in Conde’s conduct voluntarily waived her judgment or estopped her to assert it. The old judgment was never touched, and no new one was entered. The hearing on Gerald’s last motion did not render the order denying that motion appealable.” Sears, 85 Ill. 2d at 260 , 422 N.E.2d at 613 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“is not itself a judgment, as that word is used in article VI, section 6, of the 1970 Constitution or in Supreme Court Rule 303 [citation], and is not an appealable order.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.