Colyer v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
1 district · 8 state decisions
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife · Warth v. Seldin · Allen v. Wright · Bennett v. Spear · Chambers v. Nasco, Inc.
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.
“ethical breach so infects the litigation in which disqualification is sought that it impacts the moving party’s interest in a just and lawful determination of her claims, she may have the constitutional standing needed to bring a motion to disqualify based on a third-party conflict of interest or other ethical violation. In such a case, moreover, the prudential barrier to litigating the rights and claims of third parties should not stop a district court from determining the motion, because such a limitation would be overcome by the court’s inherent obligation to manage the conduct of attorneys who appear before it and to ensure the fair administration of justice.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“To allow an unauthorized surrogate to champion the rights of the former client would allow that surrogate to use the conflict rules for his own purposes where a genuine conflict might not really exist.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he only injury that results from the breach of confidentiality is personal to [the former client]. [The non-client] has no standing to complain that information obtained ... will be used against him.”
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.