Hyde v. Small’s Empirical Analysis
123 F.3d 583 · 1997
Citation profile
22 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Tuf Racing Products, Inc. v. American Suzuki Motor Corp. (2000), Cole v. Wodziak (1999)
22 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Farrar v. Hobby · Marek v. Chesny · Triad Associates, Inc. v. Chicago Housing Authority · Langton v. Johnston
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“confer[s] substantial benefits not measured by the amount of damages awarded.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is impossible, unless there is an expectation of a fee award (and often not then), to interest a competent lawyer in bringing a suit in federal court to recover a small amount of damages unless the plaintiff is a rich person willing to finance the suit out of his own pocket rather than by means of a contingent-fee contract, the normal way in which tort suits are financed in this country... [T]he mere fact that a suit does not result in a large award of damages or the breaking of new constitutional ground is not a good ground for refusing to award any attorneys’ fees.... [T]he brevity of the trial and the fact that Hyde’s lawyer did not ask the jury to award a specific amount suggest that he was not aiming for the big bucks. The defendants could have smoked him out by making a modest settlement offer; had Hyde refused it and gone on to recover less at trial than the defendants had offered, he would have been barred from obtaining any attorney’s fees that he incurred after the offer... .When the civil rights plaintiff aims small, and obtains an amount that is significant in relation to that aim (it need not reach the target), he is prima facie entitled to an award of fees even if the case establishes no precedent. There is no minimum amount in controversy required in civil rights cases and no federal small claims court, so it is no abuse of the federal district courts to bring the kind of suit that Hyde did, and therefore he should not be disqualified from an award of attorn”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The district court based its decision to award no fees on the small size of the verdict and the fact that the case broke no new ground in the law of police abuses. If these are sufficient grounds it means that routine police misconduct that, although unconstitutional, is neither harmful enough to support a large award of compensatory damages nor malicious enough to justify an award of punitive damages is, as a practical matter, beyond the reach of the law. It is impossible, unless there is an expectation of a fee award (and often not then), to interest a competent lawyer in bringing a suit in federal court to recover a small amount of damages unless the plaintiff is a rich person willing to finance the suit out of his own pocket rather than by means of a contingent-fee contract, the normal way in which tort suits are financed in this country. Yet the cumulative effect of petty violations of the Constitution arising out of the interactions between the police (and other public officers) and the citizenry on the values protected by the Constitution may not be petty, and if this is right then the mere fact that a suit does not result in a large award of damages or the breaking of new constitutional ground is not a good ground for refusing to award any attorneys’ fees.”
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.