Williams v. Moon’s Empirical Analysis
1950
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently March 1983 · most notably 54 Cal. 2d 603 - Kusior v. Silver (1960), Hill v. Johnson (1951)
24 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 Gonzales v. Pacific Greyhound Lines · Estate of Walker · Chatham v. Mills · 50 Cal. App. 2d 15 - Dazey v. Dazey · People v. Hamilton
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Specification of conclusive presumptions. The following presumptions, and no others, are deemed conclusive: “5. The issue of a wife cohabiting with her husband, who is not impotent, is indisputably presumed to be legitimate.” The stated presumption is conclusive, and with certain exceptions evidence cannot be received to the contrary. (Hill v. Johnson, 102 Cal.App.2d 94, 95-96 [ 226 P.2d 655 ].) As was said in Williams v. Moon, 98 Cal.App.2d 214, 217 [ 219 P.2d 902 ], quoting from Hargrave v. Hargrave, 9 Beav. 552: “ ‘A child born of a married woman is in the first instance presumed to be legitimate. The presumption thus established by law is not to be rebutted by circumstances which only create doubt and suspicion, but it may be wholly removed by proper and sufficient evidence showing that the .husband was (1) incompetent; (2) entirely absent, so as to have no intercourse or communication of any kind with the mother; (3) entirely absent at the period during which the child must, in the course of nature, have been begotten; or (4) only present under such circumstances as afford clear and satisfactory proof that there was no sexual intercourse.’ And the same rule is supported by the authorities in this country.” And on pages 218-219, quoting from Estate of Walker, 180 Cal. 478 [ 181 P. 792 ]: “ ‘There is no doubt but that the presumption of legitimacy goes at least to this extent, that if it appear that by the laws of nature it is possible that the husband is the father (that”
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.