Oldham v. Ehrlich’s Empirical Analysis
617 F.2d 163 · 1980
Citation profile
33 federal appellate · 7 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 83 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2009 · most notably Hensley v. Eckerhart (1983), Evans v. Jeff D. Ex Rel. Johnson (1986)
33 federal appellate · 7 district · 8 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
Relies on United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Dandridge v. Williams · Weinberger v. Salfi · Wood v. Strickland · Hagans v. Lavine
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 83 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Although a court may consider a large number of factors in arriving at a reasonable attorney's fee under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (citation omitted), we conclude it is inappropriate to consider that the prevailing plaintiff's attorney was working for a legal aid organization. The basic purpose of section 1988--to encourage enforcement and observance of civil rights-permits no distinction between private attorneys and legal aid organizations. Legal aid organizations can expand their services to indigent civil rights complaints by virtue of their receipt of attorney's fees. And a defendant sued by a plaintiff retaining legal aid counsel should not be benefited by the fortuity that the plaintiff could not afford private counsel. Thus, whether the focus is on enabling suit by those otherwise unable to afford litigation, or on deterring misconduct by imposing a monetary burden upon the wrongdoer, a legal aid organization merits an attorney's fee fully as much as does the private attorney (footnote omitted)."”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.