Baca v. Padilla’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Many eases will be found cited in the note to section 421, Thornton on Attorneys at Law, upholding the validity of contracts for contingent fees generally. We do not believe any ease will be found which upholds the validity of a contingent fee beyond the rule of necessity, that is to say, the courts will not uphold such contracts where provisions may be made for the prosecution of the suit by the court in other ways. The most familiar illustration is that offered by suits for divorce and alimony. Contracts have been made by attorneys to prosecute such suits for a designated portion of the alimony recovered, and all such contracts, so far as we are aware, have been declared invalid upon one ground or the other, I. e.: (1) That there was no necessity for permitting such contracts, because the court was authorized by law to require the husband to pay suit money, thus enabling the wife to prosecute her action; (2) that it is the policy of the law that reconciliation should be effected between husband and wife, and the attorney, having a great interest in the amount of alimony recovered, which depended, of course, upon the prosecution of the suit to a conclusion, would at all times be standing in the way of such reconciliation This matter, in so far as divorce cases are concerned, was ably discussed by the Supreme Court of California in the case of Newman v. Freitas, 129 Cal. 283 , 61 P. 907 , 50 L. R. A. 548. Many other similar cases will be round referred to in the note to the ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Opperud v. Bussey

2. ““There is an obvious distinction bearing upon the right of an attorney to recover upon a quantum meruit for services rendered pursuant to an illegal contract, between a case where the contract is illegal because the services agreed to be rendered in performance thereof are illegal, and a case where the contract is illegal only because of some improper provision relating to the mode of compensation, or an illegal stipulation against the right of the client to compromise the claim without the consent of the attorney. It is apparent, in the first case, that every objection to permitting a recovery upon an express contract applies with equal force to a recovery upon a quantum meruit. And this is true even when the services are not intrinsically illegal, but are improper and contrary to public policy because of the circumstances under which they are rendered.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Callahan v. Jones