495 So. 2d 61 - Cofield v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently June 2006
17 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 368 So. 2d 516 - Garrett v. Raytheon Co., Inc. · Kelly v. Shropshire · 404 So. 2d 614 - Fountain v. Phillips · West Pratt Coal Co. v. Dorman · Corona Coal Co. v. Hendon
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“" 'The statute . . . will not begin to run until some injury occurs which gives rise to a maintainable cause of action. . . . In actions such as the case at bar, the act complained of does not itself inflict a legal injury at the time it is done, but plaintiff's injury only follows as a result and a subsequent development of the defendant's act. "In such cases, the cause of action 'accrues,' and the statute of limitations begins to run, 'when and only when, the damages are sustained.' " ' "”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“[a]lthough the plaintiff's damages may have been compounded subsequently by virtue of the effect which the . . . conviction had on the punishment enhancement provisions of Alabama's Habitual Felony Offender Act, the [period of limitations] would, nonetheless, have begun to run on the date the conviction was entered.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"The plaintiff's argument is premised on the erroneous assumption that no legal injury could have occurred on December 21, 1978 (the date the plaintiff pleaded guilty, allegedly on the advice of the defendants, and was convicted and sentenced under a legally defective indictment). It was on that date that the plaintiff's cause of action accrued, because it was at that time that the plaintiff would have first suffered a legal injury for which he would have been entitled to commence an action for damages against the defendants. Although the plaintiff's damages may have been compounded subsequently by virtue of the effect which the 1978 conviction had on the punishment enhancement provisions of Alabama's Habitual Felony Offender Act, the statute would, nonetheless, have begun to run on the date the conviction was entered."”
2 later decisions 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.