In Re: The Prudential Insurance Company Of America Sales Practices Litigation’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 123 district · 35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 440 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably 24 Cal. 4th 906 - Wash. Mut. Bank v. Superior Court of Orange Cty. (2001), Kenneth Newton (2001)
1 federal appellate · 123 district · 35 state decisions — followed in 16 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from New Jersey District Court)
Relationships
Relies on United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Hensley v. Eckerhart · Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor · Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams · General Telephone Co. of Southwest v. Falcon
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 440 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the complexity, expense and likely duration of the litigation; (2) the reaction of the class to the settlement; (3) the stage of the proceedings and the amount of discovery completed; (4) the risks of establishing liability; (5) the risks of establishing damages; (6) the risks of maintaining the class action through the trial; (7) the ability of the defendants to withstand a greater judgment; (8) the range of reasonableness of the settlement fund in light of the best possible recovery; (9) the range of reasonableness of the settlement fund to a possible recovery in light of all the attendant risks of litigation.”
37 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the maturity of the underlying substantive issues, as measured by experience in adjudicating individual actions, the development of scientific knowledge, the extent of discovery on the merits, and other factors that bear on the ability to assess the probable outcome of a trial on the merits of liability and individual damages; the existence and probable outcome of claims by other classes and subclasses; the comparison between the results achieved by the settlement for individual class or subclass members and the results achieved — or likely to be achieved — for other claimants; whether class or subclass members are accorded the right to opt out of the settlement; whether any provisions for attorneys’ fees are reasonable; and whether the procedure for processing individual claims under the settlement is fair and reasonable.”
31 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.