Erwin v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
591 F.3d 313 · 2010
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently January 2023 · most notably Grace v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (2011), United States v. Bergbauer (2010)
5 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 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
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 3402 · 26 U.S.C. § 6672 · 26 U.S.C. § 7501
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. · Slodov v. United States · Barwick v. Celotex Corp. · Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club, 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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A responsible person's intentional preference for creditors other than the United States establishes willfulness as a matter of law; such an intentional preference occurs when the responsible person knows of or recklessly disregards an unpaid deficiency.” Erwin, 591 F.3d at 325 . Mr. Johnson has admitted that was the case here, stating that the company”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Erwin raises a putative "reasonable cause” defense, arguing that GCAD had to use gross receipts to pay rent and vendors in order to stay operational. Courts that have recognized this defense have limited it to situations in which circumstances outside a taxpayer's control have thwarted his reasonable efforts to protect trust funds, and have not applied it in situations where the taxpayer made a conscious decision to pay other creditors. See, e.g., Thosteson, 331 F.3d at 1301 (citing Logal v. United States, 195 F.3d 229, 233 (5th Cir.1999)); see also Greenberg, 46 F.3d at 244 ("It is no defense that the corporation was in financial distress and that funds were spent to keep the corporation in business with an expectation that sufficient revenue would later become available to pay the United States.”). Thus, even were we to conclude that a "reasonable cause” defense to § 6672 liability exists, such a defense would not protect Erwin under these facts.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]hen a responsible person learns that withholding taxes have gone unpaid in past quarters for which he was responsible, he has a duty to use all current and future unencumbered funds available to the corporation to pay back those taxes.”
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.