38 N.C. App. 61 - Covington v. Rhodes’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions — most recently September 2015 · most notably 78 Ill. 2d 217 - Rhoades v. Norfolk & Western Railway Co. (1979), 409 So. 2d 1016 - Rosenberg v. Levin (1982)
3 federal appellate · 45 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 6 Cal. 3d 784 - Fracasse v. Brent · Martin v. . Camp · Heinzman v. Fine, Fine, Legum & Fine · 118 Ill. App. 2d 419 - Warner v. Basten · Casket Co. v. . Wheeler
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a] contract for legal services is not like other contracts. The client has the right to discharge his attorney at any time, and it is our view that upon such discharge the attorney is entitled to recover the reasonable value of the services he has already provided. As the New York Court noted in Martin v. Camp, [ 219 N.Y. 170 , 114 N.E. 46 (1916)]: “The rule secures to the attorney the right to recover the reasonable value of the services which he has rendered, and is well calculated to promote public confidence in the members of an honorable profession whose relation to their clients is personal and confidential.” Id. at 176 , 114 N.E. at 48 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he charging lien is an equitable lien which gives an attorney the right to recover his fees ‘from a fund recovered by his aid.’ The charging lien attaches not to the cause of action, but to the judgment at the time it is rendered. At the time when [a former attorney’s] purported charging lien . . . would . . . attach[ ], the time of judgment in favor of [the attorney’s former client]..., the judgment [would not be] a fund recovered by the [attorney’s] aid, as he [has withdrawn. The former attorney is] entitled to no interest in the fund. [Citations omitted.]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“‘Such a discharge does not constitute a breach of contract for the reason that it is a basic term of the contract, implied by law into it by reason of the special relationship between the contracting parties, that the client may terminate the contract at will.’ (Citation omitted.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.