44 N.C. App. 584 - Fountain v. Patrick’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably 156 N.C. App. 281 - In Re Shermer (2003), 62 N.C. App. 182 - Kennedy v. Starr (1983)
38 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 Moore v. Deal · 30 N.C. App. 420 - Norton v. Sawyer · Sink v. Easter · Brady v. Town of Chapel Hill · 11 N.C. App. 128 - Kirby v. ASHEVILLE CONTRACTING COMPANY
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[B]y the time this action was commenced, plaintiff had already negotiated with defendants' insurance carrier acting on behalf of defendants. Evidence tended to show that plaintiff could have easily notified the carrier of her potential civil action and solicited aid in ascertaining defendants' addresses for purposes of service of process. Finally, it appears that plaintiff had available to her the option of requesting defendants' insurance carrier to answer the complaint voluntarily and defend the claim where the defendants could not be located, although there was no duty to do so by either party. There was no attempt to pursue any of these options. Due diligence dictates that plaintiff use all resources reasonably available to her in attempting to locate defendants. Where the information required for proper service of process is within plaintiff's knowledge or, with due diligence, can be ascertained, service of process by publication is not proper.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“are strictly construed, both as grants of authority and in determining whether service has been made in conformity with the statute.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“A defect in service of process by publication is jurisdictional, rendering any judgment or order obtained thereby void.”
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.