Blanchard v. Bergeron’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
509 federal appellate · 265 district · 340 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,375 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2024 · most notably Farrar v. Hobby (1992), Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School District (1989)
509 federal appellate · 265 district · 340 state decisions — followed in 38 states
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.
Appellate journey
reviewedBlanchard v. Bergeron (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Blum v. Stenson · Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc. · Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. · Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air
Cited together with Hensley v. Eckerhart · Blum v. Stenson · Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air · Farrar v. Hobby · City of Riverside v. Rivera
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 2,375 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the time and labor required; (2) the novelty and difficulty of the questions; (3) the skill requisite to perform the legal service properly; (4) the preclusion of other employment by the attorney due to acceptance of the case; (5) the customary fee; (6) whether the fee is fixed or contingent; (7) time limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances; (8) the amount involved and the results obtained; (9) the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys; (10) the “undesirability” of the case; (11) the nature and length of the professional relationship with the client; and (12) awards in similar cases.”
57 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Should a fee agreement provide less than a reasonable fee ..., the defendant should nevertheless be required to pay the higher [market-based] amount.”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a civil rights plaintiff seeks to vindicate important civil and constitutional rights that cannot be valued solely in monetary terms,”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Farrar v. Hobby · Domegan v. Ponte
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.