Stepak v. Addison’s Empirical Analysis
20 F.3d 398 · 1994
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Sunamerica Corporation v. Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (1996), Grimes v. Donald (1996)
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 10 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 15 U.S.C. § 77K (§ 11 of the Securities Act of 1933)
Relies on Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc. · Burks v. Lasker · Fitzpatrick v. City of Atlanta · Aronson v. Lewis · Smith v. Van Gorkom
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]hen a board chooses to entrust its investigation to a law firmand it is unquestionably the board's prerogative to do sothe directors must ensure that counsel is capable of independently evaluating the corporation's interests. Selection of a law firm that has actually represented the alleged wrongdoers in proceedings related to the very subject matter that the law firm is now asked to neutrally investigate reaches, in our opinion, the level of gross negligence and is incompatible with a board's fiduciary duty to inform itself "of all material information reasonably available" prior to making a business decision.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(A) any effort by the plaintiff to obtain the desired action from the directors or comparable authority and, if necessary, from the shareholders or members; and (B) the reasons for not obtaining the action or not making the effort.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“) embarked on a pattern of illegal activity designed to entrench themselves in power and to shield their actions from regulatory oversight. These illegal activities allegedly spurred investigations by the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and various state agencies. Stepak alleged that in order fraudulently to reduce their tax bills, Southern and its subsidiaries, at the direction of the insider defendants,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Stepak v. Addison
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.