Rheuark v. Shaw’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently February 2003 · most notably Hays v. Jefferson County (1982), Rheuark v. Shaw (1980)
10 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1654 · 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985 · 42 U.S.C. § 1988 · 5 U.S.C. § 552 (Freedom of Information Act)
Relies on Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Barker v. Wingo · Faretta v. California · Monroe v. Pape
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he legislative history of Section 1988 reveals that its purpose is not to compensate pro se litigants, but to provide counsel fees to prevailing parties in order to give private citizens a meaningful opportunity to vindicate their rights: In many cases arising under our civil rights laws, the citizen who must sue to enforce the law has little or no money with which to hire a lawyer. If private citizens are to be able to assert their civil rights, ... [they] must have the opportunity to recover what it costs them to vindicate these rights in court. S.Rep.No.94-1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 2, reprinted in [1976] U.S. Code Cong, and Ad. News, pp. 5908, 5910. . . . This section presupposes a relationship of attorney and client that is lacking in the instant case. The district court properly denied Davis’ application for attorney fees.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Owens-El v. Robinson“(t)he violation of an important public policy may involve little by way of actual damages, so far as a single individual is concerned . . . . If a defendant may feel that the cost of litigation, and, particularly, that the financial circumstances of an injured party may mean that the chances of suit being brought, or continued in the face of opposition, will be small, there will be little brake upon deliberate wrongdoing. In such instances public policy may suggest an award (of legal fees) that will remove the burden from the shoulders of the plaintiff seeking to vindicate the public right.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“A pro se prisoner cannot claim that he has foregone any income in his own business to pursue his civil rights claim. The legislative history indicates that Congress intended to compensate attorneys, not pro se litigants. The law created “no startling new remedy.” S.Rep.No.94-1011, U.S. Code Cong, and Admin. News, at 6, page 5913 (1976). An award of pro se attorney’s fees to indigent prisoners would be a startling new remedy, one not contemplated by Congress in enacting 42 U.S.C. § 1988 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Owens-El v. Robinson
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.