Gagne v. Maher’s Empirical Analysis
594 F.2d 336 · 1979
Citation profile
97 federal appellate · 35 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 284 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2019 · most notably Maher v. Gagne (1980), Commissioner, Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Jean (1990)
97 federal appellate · 35 district · 23 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Relies on United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Edelman v. Jordan · Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society · Hagans v. Lavine · Hutto v. Finney
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 284 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]f an attorney is required to expend time litigating his fee claim, yet may not be compensated for that time, the attorney's effective rate for all the hours expended on the case will be correspondingly decreased.... Such a result would not comport with the purpose behind most statutory fee authorizations, viz, the encouragement of attorneys to represent indigent clients and to act as private attorneys general in vindicating congressional policies.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'furthers the Congressional goal of encouraging suits to vindicate constitutional rights without undermining the longstanding judicial policy of avoiding unnecessary constitutional decisions.'”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]f the fee claims are exorbitant or the time devoted to presenting them is unnecessarily high, the judge may refuse further compensation or grant it sparingly.”
5 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.