174 W. Va. 287 - Powers v. Goodwin’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently February 2013
8 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))
Relies on Smith v. Wade · New York v. Ferber · Surowitz v. Hilton Hotels Corp. · J. Gordon Turnbull, Inc. v. Commissioner · Securities & Exchange Commission v. Manor Nursing Centers, Inc.
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Except for malicious prosecution suits, it is generally held that reliance on advice of counsel is not an absolute defense to charges that a person is acting unlawfully or negligently. We further said in Powers : It seems clear, though, that the party asserting this defense has the burden of showing that he: (1) made a complete disclosure of the facts to his attorney; (2) requested the attorney’s advice as to the legality of the contemplated action; (3) received advice that it was legal; and (4) relied upon the advice in good faith. However, acting under advice of counsel is not an absolute defense in other situations. In the contempt field, we have stated that it is not a defense, but may go to the mitigation issue.... This issue has been raised in suits involving violations of civil rights under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 , which are treated as federal tort actions. Typical of most courts’ approach in this area is this statement from Crowe v. Lucas, 595 F.2d 985, 992 (5th Cir.1979): “Reliance on advice of counsel does not serve as an absolute defense to a civil rights action. Rather, it is among the calculus of facts that a jury is to consider on the issue of good faith.””
2 later decisions 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.