Hampton v. Hobbs’s Empirical Analysis
106 F.3d 1281 · 1997
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 3 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 117 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably Mitchell v. Farcass (1997), Carson v. Johnson (1997)
34 federal appellate · 3 district · 19 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1915 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Mathews v. Eldridge · Lewis Director Arizona Department of Corrections v. Casey · Bounds v. Smith · Bolling v. Sharpe
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 117 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[d]eterring frivolous prisoner filings in the federal courts falls within the realm of Congress's legitimate interests, and the specific provisions in question are rationally related to the achievement of that interest.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“The legislation was aimed at the skyrocketing numbers of claims filed by prisoners--many of which are meritless--and the corresponding burden those filings have placed on the federal courts.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“Litigation is not a free good, and its costs are not limited to those who initiate it. They are borne not only by the plaintiff but by the defendant, by the taxpayer, and by the parties to other lawsuits in the same court, whose cases may be delayed or who may receive less attention from the judges that if the caseload were lighter. If the suit is frivolous the defendant may be able to recover his direct litigation outlays from the plaintiff by an order awarding attorney’s fees, entered at the close of the case. But the order can at best cover only a portion of the total social costs of the litigation, and of course it is ineffectual if the plaintiff can’t afford to pay the award. Moreover, even if a suit is not frivolous ... it will impose costs on the defendant and the judicial system. We want the putative plaintiff to think about the case and not just file reflexively; having to make even a modest monetary outlay may help focus his thinking. And just because a plaintiff can’t afford to pay the full filing fee, it doesn’t follow that his lawsuit is incapable of imposing substantial costs on the defendant and on others. Indeed, the problem of litigation that generates social costs in excess of social benefits is particularly acute with respect to litigation by indigents, since they cannot be deterred from suit by the prospect of having to pay their adversaries’ legal expenses should the suit be adjudged frivolous. The problem is even more acute when the indigent plaintiff is”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Beck v. Symington · George v. State
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.