Thompkins v. Fuller’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently July 2011 · most notably Renner v. Nemitz (2001), Favel v. American Renovation & Construction Co. (2002)
25 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 United States v. Binghamton Construction Co. · Copenhaver v. Northern Pacific Railway Co. · Chadwick v. Giberson · State Ex Rel. Wilson v. Department of Natural Resources & Conservation of Montana, Water Resources Division · Nikles v. Barnes
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It has long been the rule in Montana that in the absence of agreement between the parties or statutory authorization, a successful party is not entitled to an award of attorney’s fees. Nikles v. Barnes (1969), 153 Mont. 113 , 454 P.2d 608 ... We recognize a very narrow exception to the above rule. A District Court does have equitable power to award attorney’s fees where the prevailing party has been forced into an action that is frivolous and utterly without merit. Wilson v. Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (1982), 199 Mont. 189 , 648 P.2d 766 , 39 St.Rep. 1294 .” Thompkins v. Fuller (Mont. 1983), [ 205 Mont. 168 ,] 667 P.2d 944, 954 , 40 St.Rep. 1192 , 1204.”
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.