39 Cal. 2d 161 - Clark v. State Bar’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 84 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 94 later decisions — most recently May 2020 · most notably 9 Cal. 3d 704 - Lewis v. State Bar (1973), 6 Cal. 3d 847 - Vaughn v. State Bar (1972)
6 federal appellate · 84 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 Meek v. Fowler · Bone v. Hayes · In re Rose · 60 Cal. App. 2d 669 - Guardianship of Reynolds · Purdy v. Johnson
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 94 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The rule against commingling was adopted to provide against the probability in some cases, the possibility in many cases, and the danger in all cases that such commingling will result in the loss of the clients’ money. Moral turpitude is not necessarily involved in the commingling of a client’s money with an attorney’s own money if the client’s money is not endangered by such procedure and is always available to him. However, inherently there is danger in such practice for frequently unforeseen circumstances arise jeopardizing the safety of the client’s funds, and as far as the client is concerned the result is the same whether his money is deliberately misappropriated by an attorney or is unintentionally lost by circumstances beyond the control of the attorney.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. In Re Hessler“Gross negligence is a breach of the fiduciary relationship that binds an attorney to the most conscientious fidelity to the interests of his client. [Citations.] It warrants disciplinary action, since it is a violation of his oath to discharge his duties to the best of his knowledge and ability.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Lowe v. State Bar“[C]ommingling is committed when a client's money is intermingled with that of his attorney and its separate identity lost so that it may be used for the attorney's personal expenses or subjected to the claims of his creditors. [Citations.]”
1 later decision 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.