Hawk v. Hawk’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
159 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 160 later decisions — most recently July 2021 · most notably Roth v. Weston (2002), In Re Custody of Smith (2000)
159 state decisions — followed in 25 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 Santosky v. Kramer · Roe v. Wade · Stanley v. Illinois · Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Meyer v. State of Nebraska
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 160 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In light of [the constitutional right of privacy acknowledged in Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588 (Tenn.1992) ], we believe that when no substantial harm threatens a child’s welfare, the state lacks a sufficiently compelling justification for the infringement on the fundamental right of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Thus, we find the statute to be unconstitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution, as applied to this married couple, whose fitness as parents is unchallenged.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“a parent is entitled to the custody, companionship, and care of the child, and should not be deprived thereof except by due process of law. It is a natural right, but not an inalienable one. The parents are trusted with the custody of the child upon the idea that under the instincts of parental devotion it is best for the child.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“Article I, Section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution protects the privacy interest of these parents in their child-rearing decisions, so long as their decisions do not substantially endanger the welfare of their children. Absent some harm to the child, we find that the state lacks a sufficiently compelling justification for interfering with this fundamental right. When applied to married parents who have maintained continuous custody of their children and have acted as fit parents, we conclude that court interference pursuant to T.C.A. § 36-6-301 constitutes an unconstitutional invasion of privacy rights under the Tennessee Constitution.”
4 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.