Woodruff v. Tomlin’s Empirical Analysis
616 F.2d 924 · 1980
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 4 district · 25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 86 later decisions — most recently March 2015 · most notably Wagenmann v. Adams (1987), 119 Wash. 2d 251 - Hizey v. Carpenter (1992)
29 federal appellate · 4 district · 25 state decisions — followed in 17 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.
Relationships
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Bishop v. Wood · Butz v. Economou · Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co.
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 86 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a datum for ascertaining state law which is not to be disregarded by a federal court unless it is convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide otherwise.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[There can be no liability for acts and omissions by an attorney in the conduct of litigation which are based on an honest exercise of professional judgment. This is a sound rule. Otherwise every losing litigant would be able to sue his attorney if he could find another attorney who was willing to second guess the decisions of the first attorney with the advantage of hindsight. ... To hold that an attorney may not be held liable for the choice of trial tactics and the conduct of a case based on professional judgment is not to say, however, that an attorney may not be held liable for any of his actions in relation to a trial. He is still bound to exercise a reasonable de gree of skill and care in all his professional undertakings.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“define standards for civil liability of lawyers for professional conduct,”
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.