Marusich v. Bright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 state decisions

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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““I cannot agree with the suggestion ... that a parent seeking to modify a prior custody order always bears a heavy burden of proof. It is true that such a parent will always have the burden of proving a material change of circumstances, without which the prior custody order will have res judicata effect. See, e.g., Self v. Fugard, 518 So.2d 727 (Ala.Civ.App.1987) (explaining that a child-custody determination is final with respect to the particular set of circumstances currently before the court but is subject to modification upon a showing of a subsequent material change of circumstances); and Spears v. Wheeler, 877 So.2d 607 , 609 n. 1 (Ala.Civ.App.2003) (Murdock, J., dissenting); cf. In re B.B., 944 So.2d 960, 962 (Ala.Civ.App.2006) (quoting S.P. v. E.T., 957 So.2d 1127, 1131-32 (Ala.Civ.App.2005), in the context of a dependency proceeding). See generally Ex parte J.P., 641 So.2d 276 (Ala.1994). Once a material change of circumstances has been proven, however, the extent to which a child’s interests must be promoted by a proposed change of custody (and thus the weight of the petitioning parent’s ultimate burden) will depend on the degree of disruption that must be overcome before the court can conclude that the change will be in the child’s best interests. See Smith v. Smith, 865 So.2d 1207, 1211-13 (Ala.Civ.App.2003) (Murdock, J., concurring in the result).””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Russell v. Russell