Godwin v. Derwinski’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
How this case has been cited
Cited by 107 later decisions — most recently October 2014 · most notably Caluza v. Brown (1995), Allday v. Brown (1995)
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
Applies 38 U.S.C. § 312 · 38 U.S.C. § 313 · 38 U.S.C. § 5107 · 38 U.S.C. § 5108 · 38 U.S.C. § 7104 · 38 U.S.C. § 7252 · 38 U.S.C. § 7261
Relies on Gilbert v. Derwinski · Colvin v. Derwinski · Murphy v. Derwinski · Manio v. Derwinski · Hatlestad v. Derwinski
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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Inherent in the duty-to-assist obligation and the Gilbert explanation mandate is a requirement for the Secretary to respond to a claimant’s request for VA assistance one way or the other. If VA turns the request down because it finds that the requested information is not relevant or that the claim is not well grounded (a prerequisite to the triggering of the duty-to-assist obligation under section 5107(a), ... then the claimant will have the opportunity to try to convince VA that the information he seeks is relevant or that the claim is well grounded, or to submit other evidence as an alternative). In this case, the appellant received no response whatsoever except for the assertions in the Secretary’s brief that searching through the Nürnberg records “would be an unproductive use of [Government] resources.” ... On remand, the appellant’s request must be dealt with by VA directly.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Klekar v. West
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.