Gibbs v. Easa’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 state decisions

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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The American Rule does not however serve as an absolute bar to the awarding of attorney fees in the absence of statute or contract. Courts have from common law days recognized several exceptions to the general principle that each party should bear the costs of his or her own legal representation. Courts have long recognized that attorney fees may be awarded when an opponent has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reason, or where a successful litigant has conferred a substantial benefit upon a class of persons and the court's shifting of the fees operates to spread the costs proportionately among the members of the bene-fitted class. Additionally, courts have also recognized a "private attorney general" rationale.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2008 OK CIV APP 36 - Hastings v. Kelley

2. “"The record in this case simply does not support an equitable assessment of bad faith attorney's fees pursuant to a court's equitable powers such as were affirmed in Owens and Winters In examining the partial record in the case at bar, Gibbs alleges frivolous motions, failure to provide documents and information and numerous hearings concerning the contempt citations and the asset hearing.... With no tran-seript and no specific findings of the trial court, we are unable to ascertain from the Statements of Account attached to Gibb's applications for sanction, which items the trial court found to be directly related to some sort of oppressive conduct by Easa." {emphasis added)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Walker v. Ferguson