201 N.C. App. 270 - Cunningham v. Selman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Unlike a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, the court need not confine its evaluation of a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to the face of the pleadings, but may review or accept any evidence, such as affidavits, or it may hold an evidentiary hearing.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 258 N.C. App. 408 - Holton v. Holton · 242 N.C. App. 42 - Doe v. Diocese Raleigh

2. “[t]he fact that the Rules are not designed to be a basis for civil liability; that the purpose of the Rules can be subverted when they are invoked by opposing parties as procedural weapons; and that nothing in the Rules should be deemed to augment any substantive legal duty of lawyers does not mean that the Rules of Professional Conduct have utterly no bearing on the proper resolution of civil litigation. Instead, we believe Comment [7] and the principle enunciated in Baars are directed primarily toward cases in which a former client claims that an attorney is civilly liable, based, in whole or in part, on alleged violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The present case does not involve such a scenario. Furthermore, neither Comment [7] nor Baars categorically precludes the use of standards set out in the Rules of Professional Conduct in civil litigation; instead, they simply point out that the Rules of Professional Conduct do not have the primary purpose of establishing a standard of care for use in determining civil liability. In this case, however, the principle upon which Plaintiff relies is totally inapplicable because Defendant does not seek to hold Plaintiff liable for an alleged violation of Rule 1.5(f); instead, Defendant found herself on the receiving end of civil litigation after having invoked the State Bar's fee dispute resolution process and attempted to use Plaintiff's noncompliance with the State Bar's rules as a jurisdictional defense to Plaintiff's c”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 244 N.C. App. 53 - Law Offices of Peter H. Priest, PLLC v. Coch

3. “under the system of concurrent jurisdiction over attorney conduct and discipline in effect in North Carolina, both the State Bar and the courts have an important role to play in assuring that attorneys conduct themselves properly, with the courts focusing on protecting themselves from fraud and impropriety and serving the ends of the administration of justice, while the State Bar has responsibility for the broad range of questions relating to the propriety and ethics of an attorney, and with neither to act in such a manner as to disable or abridge the powers of the other.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. The NC State Bar v. Sutton