Sullivan v. Doyle’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 2 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently March 2006 · most notably American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee v. Eisenberg (1949), 94 Md. App. 461 - Lampton v. LaHood (1993)
9 federal appellate · 2 district · 24 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 Gradman v. Brown · Shippee v. Shippee · Dorsey v. Dorsey · Gordon v. Small · Slay v. Beck
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.
“The rule has long been established that where a person has the right to administer upon an estate, he is entitled to pay out of the estate reasonable counsel fees incurred in the successful defense of that right. This rule was laid down in Ex parte Young, 8 Gill 285 , by analogy to the practice of allowing an executor to pay counsel fees for the successful defense of a will. But this Court has also distinctly held that an administrator whose letters are revoked, on the ground that they were prematurely or improvidently granted, is not entitled to be allowed counsel fees out of the estate for defending his position. The reason for this rule is that legal services rendered by an attorney in defending letters of administration which are revoked cannot be said to be for the benefit of the estate.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Nevertheless, where an administrator, however honest he may be, files a claim of his own against the estate, he places himself in contradictory positions, one as the representative of the estate, the other as its adversary. And it is generally held that a person in his individual capacity cannot sue himself in his capacity as administrator. Owings v. Bates, 9 Gill 463, 466; Shippee v. Shippee, 122 N. J. Eq. 570, 195 A. 728 .””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Talbert v. Reeves““The explicit purpose of this section [§ 7], obviously intended for the protection of attorneys, is to authorize the Court to allow counsel fees only for legal services ‘rendered to an estate.’ In the case before us the attorney, in defending respondent, did not render any legal services to the estate. He did not either add to or protect the estate.””
1 later decision 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.