Sowder v. Sowder’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently October 2014 · most notably McNeill v. Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Co. (2008), Hedicke v. Gunville (2002)
40 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 Northern Pueblos Enterprises. v. Montgomery · Goodrich v. . McDonald · Prichard v. Fulmer · Komadina v. Edmondson · Drummond v. Drummond
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[T]here are four requirements for the imposition of an attorney charging lien.” ... First, there must be a valid contract between the attorney and the client, although the contract need not be express.... Second, there must be a judgment, or “fund,” that resulted from the attorney’s services .... Third, the attorney must have given clear and unequivocal notice that he intends to assert a lien, and notice must be given to the “appropriate parties.” Finally, the lien must be timely — notice of the lien must be given “before the proceeds [from] the judgment have been distributed.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the right of an attorney or solicitor to recover his fees and money expended on behalf of his client from a fund recovered by his efforts, and also the right to have the court interfere to prevent payment by the judgment debtor to the creditor in fraud of his right to the same.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“`It is not enough ... to support the imposition of a charging lien that an attorney has provided his services; the services must, in addition, produce a positive judgment or settlement for the client, since the lien will attach only to the tangible fruits of the services.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Moffat v. Branch
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.