Berrain v. Katzen’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
2 district · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently November 2013 · most notably Aventis Pasteur, Inc. v. Skevofilax (2007), Parler & Wobber v. Miles & Stockbridge, P.C. (2000)
2 district · 32 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 Fields v. Hartford Casualty Insurance Co. · Hammond Packing Company v. State of Arkansas · Klein v. Weiss · Baltimore Transit Co. v. Mezzanotti · Public Service Commission v. Patuxent Valley Conservation League
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(b) Suits by Individuals Under Disability.—An individual under disability to sue may sue by guardian or other like fiduciary or, if none, by next friend, subject to any order of court for the protection of the individual under disability. When a minor is in the sole custody of one of its parents, that parent has the exclusive right to sue on behalf of the minor for a period of one year following the accrual of the cause of action, and if the custodial parent fails to institute suit within the one year period, any person interested in the minor shall have the right to institute suit on behalf of the minor as next friend upon first mailing notice to the last known address of the custodial parent.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“the trial court has a special duty to protect the rights and interests of [a] minor plaintiff,”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The function of the next friend, or prochein ami 6 , has its genesis in ancient English statutory law. The first statute permitting a next friend to sue on behalf of infants was promulgated by Parliament as 3 Edw. 1 , Cap. 48 (1 Westminster 8) in 1275 and was limited to those cases where the guardian had acted to bar his ward’s cause of action. In 1285, Parliament extended the right of a next friend to sue on behalf of an infant to all actions by 13 Edw. 1 , Cap. 15 (2 Westminster 15). As was explained in J.H. Thomas’s arrangement of Lord Coke’s First Institute:” “At common law, infants could neither sue nor defend, except by guardian; by whom was meant, not the guardian of the infant’s person and estate, but either one admitted by the court for the particular suit on the infants’ personal appearance, or appointed for suits in general by the king’s letters patent. But this rule was found inconvenient, it sometimes happening, that an infant was secreted by those having legal custody of him, and so prevented from applying to have a guardian ad litem appointed. Hence was seen the necessity of permitting any persons to litigate for the infant’s benefit, who should be disposed to risk the expense. On this principle the Statute of Westminster the first enables any one to sue as prochein amy for any infant in an assize, where the infant himself is essoigned by his guardian, or otherwise disturbed from suing the assize. The statute of Westminster the second extended this provision b”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Fox v. Wills
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.