Johnson v. Summer’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2001
2 federal appellate · 3 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 15 U.S.C. § 15 (§ 4 of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988 · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 706 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc. · Larry Nadeau v. Raymond A. Helgemoe, Warden, New Hampshire State Prison · United States v. Alcea Band · Richerson v. Jones · Johnson v. State of Mississippi
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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The history of this litigation demonstrates that, despite the provision for fee-shifting created in § 1988, the ability of a private individual to enforce the civil rights statute is impaired by the opposing resources of the State. If an attorney knew that an order of this court providing for reasonable fees were to remain unenforced for well over a year, while the defendant continues to oppose the claim through the appellate process and by other means, that attorney might be deterred from handling any form of pro bono litigation. This court believes that such a result is clearly contrary to the purposes of the 1976 amendment to § 1988. . . . This court believes that an award of interest on attorney’s fees under § 1988 is consistent with this rationale, for it will help to counter the deterrence of otherwise competent and eager counsel from participating in protracted litigation, and it will also “fairly place the economical burden” faced by a prevailing party and his counsel where the fee award remains unpaid for an excessive length of time.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.