Calamia v. Spivey’s Empirical Analysis
632 F.2d 1235 · 1980
Citation profile
54 federal appellate · 16 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 146 later decisions — most recently August 2019 · most notably Blau v. Del Monte Corporation (1985), Katsaros v. Cody (1984)
54 federal appellate · 16 district · 3 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 29 U.S.C. § 1101 (§ 401 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974)
Relies on Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala. · Curtis v. Loether · Ross v. Bernhard · Linkletter v. Walker · Wardle v. Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund
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 146 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) A civil action may be brought— (1) by a participant or beneficiary— (B) to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan, to enforce his rights under the terms of the plan, or to clarify his rights to future benefits under the terms of the plan; gí) by a participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary (A) to enjoin any act or practice which violates any provision of this subchapter or the terms of the plan, or (B) to obtain appropriate equitable relief (i) to redress such violations or (ii) to enforce any provisions of this subchapter or the terms of the plan;----”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Since Congress has the power to entrust the enforcement of new rights to courts sitting as in equity, Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189 at 195 [ 94 S.Ct. 1005 at 1008 , 39 L.Ed.2d 260 (1974) ], the first step in determining the legal or equitable nature of an action such as this is to examine the intent of Congress. If congressional intent is not apparent the next step is to examine the “pre-merger custom with respect to such questions”, looking at how similar actions were treated before the merger of law and equity. Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U.S. 531 , 538 n. 10, 90 S.Ct. 733 , 738 n. 10 [ 24 L.Ed.2d 729 (1970)]. See also Curtis v. Loether, supra, 415 U.S. at 195-96 , 94 S.Ct. at 1009 .... In the absence of any clear congressional intent, the Court in Wardle [ Wardle v. Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund, 627 F.2d 820 (7th Cir.1980)] examined prior cases and determined that similar claims were previously considered equitable and that the kind of determination required— whether the pension fund acted arbitrarily and capriciously — was one traditionally performed by judges. Wardle v. Central States Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund, supra, 627 F.2d at 829, 830 . We concur in that determination. ...”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[s]ince Congress has the power to entrust enforcement of new rights to courts sitting as in equity, the first step in determining the legal or equitable nature of an action such as [a claim for benefits] is to examine the intent of Congress.”
1 later decision 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.