McCormick v. Axelrod’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently June 2019
7 federal appellate · 3 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.
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Civil contempt has as its aim the vindication of a private right of a party to litigation and any penalty imposed upon the contemnor is designed to compensate the injured private party for the loss of or interference with that right (State of New York v. Unique Ideas, 44 N.Y.2d 345 , 405 N.Y.S.2d 656 , 376 N.E.2d 1301 [ (1978) ]). Criminal contempt, on the other hand, involves vindication of an offense against public justice and is utilized to protect the dignity of the judicial system and to compel respect for its mandates (King v. Barnes, 113 N.Y. 476 , 21 N.E. 182 [ (1889) ]). Inasmuch as the objective is deterrence of disobedience of judicial mandates, the penalty imposed is punitive in nature (State of New York v. Unique Ideas, supra). Although the line between the two types of contempt may be difficult to draw in a given case, and the same act may be punishable as both a civil and a criminal contempt, the element which serves to elevate a contempt. from civil to criminal is the level of willfulness with which the conduct is carried out (compare Judiciary Law, § 753, subd. A, par. 3 [civil contempt], with id,., § 750, subd. A, par. 3 [criminal contempt]; see, e.g., Sentry Armored Courier Corp. v. New York City OffTrack Betting Corp., 75 A.D.2d 344 , 429 N.Y.S.2d 902 [ (1980) ]).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re White“the party to be held in contempt must have had knowledge of the court's order, although it is not necessary that the order actually have been served upon the party”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] court of record [such as family court] has power to punish, by fine and imprisonment, or either”
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.