Toft v. Ketchum’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 4 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 77 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2016 · most notably Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Ass'n (1982), DeLaurentis v. City of New Haven (1991)
8 federal appellate · 4 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 12 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
Relies on 15 N.J. Super. 139 - Mayflower Industries v. Thor Corp. · Melvin v. Pence · Mayflower Industries v. Thor Corp. · In Re Genser · In Re Carlsen
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 77 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If each person who files a complaint with the ethics and grievance committee may be subject to a malicious prosecution action by the accused attorney there is no question but that the effect in many instances would be the suppression of legitimate charges against attorneys who have been guilty of unethical conduct, a result clearly not in the public interest.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“arms of the court ... perform(ing) the very important functions of receiving complaints, investigating them, holding hearings on them, and then presenting their findings to the court. 50 "(T)he filing of a complaint with one of our ethics and grievance committees is in effect a filing with the Supreme Court.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Attorneys-at-law have aptly been described as professional men who follow a common calling in a spirit of public service and nonetheless so because they thereby earn their livelihood. Throughout our country's history they have been in the forefront in promoting the public welfare and much is owed them for their ever continuing leadership in defense of democratic institutions. They play a vital part in our judicial system which displays such high solicitude for civil liberties and individual rights and, while they are periodically subject as a class to false attacks, they readily withstand them by adherence to their dedicated task of furthering the interests of justice. But when these attacks become irresponsibly malicious and individualized they wrongfully place in jeopardy the reputation and very livelihood of the particular practitioner involved; and while the individual attorney is entitled to no greater judicial protection under these circumstances than the law affords to those who follow other professions and occupations, he is, in all justice, entitled to no less. The contrary holding, that those who devote so much of their lives towards attaining equal protection under law for others should be denied it for themselves, seems ironic indeed. The notion that the granting of protection to the individual attorney might impair the public interest by discouraging disclosures of misconduct, seems to have little substance. [ Id. at 290 ]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.