Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist
← 587 F.3d 445 - Diffenderfer v. Gomez-Colon

Diffenderfer v. Gomez-Colon’s Empirical Analysis

587 F.3d 445 · 2009

Citation profile

37
cited by 37 later decisions
5
states following
August 2025
most recently cited

14 federal appellate · 9 district · 6 state decisions

Relationships

Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988

Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Farrar v. Hobby · Buckhannon Board and Care Home Incs v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources · Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona · Lewis v. Continental Bank 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

  1. “When plaintiffs clearly succeeded in obtaining the relief sought before the district court and an intervening event rendered the case moot on appeal, plaintiffs are still 'prevailing parties' for the purposes of attorney's fees for the district court litigation.”
    5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
  2. “[I]n the mootness context, a 'prevailing party' is a party who managed to obtain a favorable, material alteration in the legal relationship between the parties prior to the intervening act of mootness.”
    4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
  3. “[A] party's interest in recouping attorney's fees does not create a stake in the outcome sufficient to resuscitate an otherwise moot controversy.”
    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.