Noel v. Ewing’s Empirical Analysis
1857
Citation profile
45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently December 1983 · most notably Short v. Texaco, Inc. (1980), Walker's Administrator v. Deaver (1883)
45 state decisions — followed in 13 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 David Wilkinson v. Thomas Leland · Bradish v. Gibbs · M'Intire v. State · Holridge v. Gillespie · Reynolds v. Reynolds
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In the case of Noel v. Ewing (1857), 9 Ind. 37 , which has been quoted with approval in many jurisdictions, it is said (p. 50) : “In this light marriage is more than a contract.... It is a great public institution, giving character to our whole civil polity. Hence, as between husband and wife, there is no constitutional provision protecting the marriage itself, or the property incident to it, from legislative control, by general law, upon such terms as public policy may dictate. The sovereign power may, by general enactment, regulate and mold their relative rights and duties at pleasure.””
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.