Olson v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 state decisions

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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) it is uncertain that a claim will remain live for any individual who could be named as a plaintiff long enough for a court to certify the class, and (2) there will be a constant class of persons suffering the deprivation complained of in the complaint.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Garnett v. Zeilinger · Ramirez v. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement

2. “[T]he "inherently transitory" exception did not apply because in both cases the named plaintiffs knew, from the outset, exactly how long their claims would remain alive but chose to wait to file for class certification until the claim was nearly moot or already moot. In Banks , the plaintiff knew from the outset that his claim would become moot 120 days from the onset of the controversy, but he purposefully chose to wait 112 days before filing his complaint. 977 F.2d at 1086 . We relied on this intentional delay in filing to find that the plaintiff was precluded from benefitting from the "inherently transitory” exception to the mootness doctrine. Id. ("Had Banks been diligent in filing his claim shortly after discovering that he had failed to be selected for the draft or as a free agent, and still been unable to obtain class certification, he might have been able to make an argument for the class that he had standing for the purpose of pursing a ruling on class certification even though his own individual claim had become moot.”). In Trotter , the named plaintiff had a live claim for seventy days but never filed for class certification. The plaintiff still attempted to rely on the “inherently transitory” exception for class actions when the court ruled that his case was moot. 748 F.2d at 1184 — 85. Similar to our reasoning in Banks , we found that the "inherently transitory” exception was inapplicable in Trotter because the plaintiff knew that his cause of action would soon b”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Frederic Gawry v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc.

3. “,.. seeks to keep the claim alive beyond his individual claim to certify ,the class. If the district court certifies the class, the case can proceed to the merits for the certified class of plaintiffs. The Alva.rez plaintiffs, through their inaction in response to the denial of class-certification, conceded that their claims should not extend beyond the life of their indi-vidual claims.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Washington v. Marion County Prosecutor