Harhen v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
13 federal appellate · 12 district · 74 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 118 later decisions — most recently May 2024 · most notably Werbowsky v. Collomb (2001), Curtis v. Herb Chambers I-95, Inc. (2011)
13 federal appellate · 12 district · 74 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 Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc. · Linkletter v. Walker · Nader v. Citron · Shaw v. Digital Equipment Corp. · United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of California
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 118 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The director... is subject to a controlling influence by a party to the transaction or conduct or a person who has a material pecuniary interest in the transaction or conduct, and that controlling influence could reasonably be expected to affect the director’s . . . judgment with respect to the transaction or conduct in a manner adverse to the corporation.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“(c) A director is interested in an action within the meaning of Part VII, Chapter 1 (The Derivative Action), but not elsewhere in these Principles, if: (1) The director is interested, within the meaning of Subsection (a), in the transaction or conduct that is the subject of the action, or (2) The director is a defendant in the action, except that the fact a director is named as a defendant does not make the director interested under this section if the complaint against the director: (A) is based only on the fact that the director approved of or acquiesced in the transaction or conduct that is the subject of the action, and (B) does not otherwise allege with particularity facts that, if true, raise a significant prospect that the director would be adjudged liable to the corporation or its shareholders”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The difference between Houle and the present case turns on whether a majority of the board is “interested.” In a demand refused case such as this, where the majority of the board is disinterested, the long-standing rule in Massachusetts is that the business judgment rule applies, absent a showing of bad faith or lack of investigation into the demand. See Dunphy v. Traveller Newspaper Ass’n, [ 146 Mass. 495, 497 (1888)] (“Intelligent and honest [people] differ upon questions of business policy. It is not always best to insist upon all one’s rights . . .”). When a disinterested board refers a demand to a disinterested standing committee, both receive the protection of the business judgment rule.”
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.