Ruth M. Sargeant v. Alexander E. Sharp, II’s Empirical Analysis
579 F.2d 645 · 1978
Citation profile
75 federal appellate · 13 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 134 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2010 · most notably Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air (1987), Copeland v. Marshall (1979)
75 federal appellate · 13 district · 14 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 Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc. · Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. · Hall v. Cole · City of Detroit v. Grinnell Corporation, Manhattan-Ward, Incorporated v. Grinnell Corporation, 1225 Vine Street Building, Inc. v. Grinnell Corporation · Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. of Phila. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp.
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 134 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] prevailing plaintiff should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] fee agreement is irrelevant to the issue of entitlement and should not enter into the determination of the amount of a reasonable fee.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“has broad discretion to make the initial determination of whether to allow an award of fees”
2 later decisions 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.