Higgins’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently April 2025 · most notably Wechsler v. MacKe International Trade, Inc. (In Re MacKe International Trade, Inc.) (2007), Marciano v. Fahs (In Re Marciano) (2011)
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 Garrett v. City & County of San Francisco · In Re Del Mission Limited · Robertson v. Peters · Hancock v. Montgomery Ward Long Term Disability Trust · in Re Sheldon Baroff
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.
“(i) If the court dismisses a petition under this section other than on consent of all petitioners and the debtor, and if the debtor does not waive the right to judgment under this subsection, the court may grant judgment— (1) against the petitioners and in favor of the debtor for— (A) costs; or a reasonable attorney’s fee; or (2) against any petitioner that filed the petition in bad faith, for— (A) any damages proximately caused by such filing; or (B) punitive damages.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[O]nce the debtor has satisfied the burden of demonstrating the reasonableness of the fees requested, "[i]t is then the petitioning creditors' burden to establish, under the totality of the circumstances, that factors exist which overcome the presumption, and support the disallowance of fees." However, this does not give the petitioning creditor license to conduct additional discovery and present evidence on an issue that has already been decided. The rebuttable presumption framework allows the court, which by this point in the process has heard all the evidence surrounding dismissal, to make 'an informed examination of the entire situation’ without the burden of conducting another mini-trial.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When an involuntary petition is dismissed, whether with a bad faith finding or not, this Court finds an involuntary debtor’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs under § 303(i)(l) raises a rebutta-ble presumption that fees and costs are authorized. The involuntary debtor bears the burden to show the fees requested are reasonable. It is then the petitioning creditors’ burden to establish, under the totality of the circumstances, that factors exist which overcome the presumption, and support the disallowance of fees.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In Re Diloreto
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.