Lawton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 district · 1 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Rhode Island law elevates the standard of proof of liability to clear and convincing evidence before a constructive trust may be imposed. Under Rhode Island law, “parties requesting the imposition of a constructive trust must establish by clear and convincing evidence the existence of fraud or breach of a fiduciary duty; absent such proof, there can be no constructive trust. In our view, a damages theory based on avoidance of unjust enrichment is not identical to the law on creation of a constructive trust. Nevertheless, a constructive trust damages theory is an option the district court may consider. If damages under Rhode Island law are to be based on a constructive trust theory, then evidence of the nature of the fiduciary duty and the fact of the breach of that duty must be clear and convincing”. Lawton, 327 F.3d at 46 n. 13 (internal citations omitted).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 357 F. Supp. 2d 428 - Lawton v. Nyman