Sandra Hensley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 district ·

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

1. “First, we must determine whether the affected beneficiary has provided mate rial, probative evidence, beyond the mere fact of the apparent conflict, tending to show that the fiduciary’s self-interest caused a breach of the administrator’s fiduciary obligations to the beneficiary. 22 If not, we apply our traditional abuse of discretion review. On the other hand, if the beneficiary has made the required showing, the principles of trust law require us to act very skeptically in deferring to the discretion of an administrator who appears to have committed a breach of fiduciary duty.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lundquist v. Continental Casualty Co.

2. “(1) the district court order conclusively resolved a separable legal issue, (2) the remand order forces the agency to apply a potentially erroneous rule which may result in a wasted proceeding, and (3) review would, as a practical matter, be foreclosed if an immediate appeal were unavailable.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Fisher v. Aetna Life Insurance