189 W. Va. 734 - Plumley v. May’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently January 2022 · most notably 192 W. Va. 94 - Marshall v. Saseen (1994), Berkshire Mutual Insurance v. Burbank (1996)
3 federal appellate · 32 state decisions — followed in 11 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 183 W. Va. 556 - State Automobile Mutual Insurance v. Youler · Uptegraft v. Home Insurance Co. · 184 W. Va. 331 - Pristavec v. Westfield Insurance · 112 Wash. 2d 575 - Safeco Insurance Co. v. Barcom · 177 W. Va. 84 - Perkins v. Doe
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In Plumley, this Court held that a claim by an insured to recover underinsurance benefits from his/her insurance carrier is governed by the statute of limitations applicable to contract actions. That action, as opposed to the [Plaintiffs’] pending claim ..., involved the direct attempt by an insured to recover policy benefits from the carrier with whom he/ she entered into a contract for underin-surance. In contrast to the instant case that was brought to recover damages for unfair settlement practices, Plumley was a direct suit against the insurer to obtain insurance benefits. Given this critical distinction, Plumley is clearly inapposite authority for Plaintiffs’ contention that unfair settlement claims are contractual in origin.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“A plaintiff is not precluded under W.Va.Code, 33-6-31(d) (1988), from suing an uninsured/underinsured insurance carrier if the plaintiff has settled with the tortfeasor's liability carrier for the full amount of the policy and obtained from the uninsured/underinsured carrier a waiver of its right of subrogation against the tortfeasor.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[T]hat interdependency [between the tortious nature of the accident and the insurer’s obligations] does not alter the character of the action. Indeed, a portion of the action will determine damages suffered by Mr. Plumley as a result of the tortfeasor’s negligence. Again, however, the ultimate basis for the suit is contractual.”
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.