Shadis v. Beal’s Empirical Analysis
685 F.2d 824 · 1982
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 1 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2014 · most notably Evans v. Jeff D. Ex Rel. Johnson (1986), Erie Telecommunications, Inc. v. City of Erie (1988)
15 federal appellate · 1 district · 9 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 Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society · Hutto v. Finney · Maine v. Thiboutot · Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co. · Hall v. Cole
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Commonwealth does not pay “twice” when it violates someone’s civil rights and is then forced to pay attorneys’ fees. It pays only once — as a violator of civil rights. Its role as a provider of public services is distinct from its role as a defendant in a civil rights case and has no bearing on the question of reimbursing individual citizens for individual wrong brought against them.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“By enacting (§ 1988), Congress reinvested the judiciary,with the discretion to grant attorneys’ fees in Civil Rights cases. In this case, we conclude that the Commonwealth has attempted to vitiate, by contract, a significant portion of the power and duty which Congress has granted to the judiciary as an essential tool in the scheme of civil rights enforcement. It is axiomatic to our federal system that neither private parties nor the States can avoid the equitable powers of the federal courts, (citation omitted) Here, the existence of a contrary private agreement cannot successfully be asserted as a defense to the district court’s statutorily mandated supervisory power over attorneys’ fees.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The statutory policies underlying the award of fees justify such shifting without regard to whether the individual plaintiff initially assumed the financial burdens of representation.... The award of fees to legal aid offices and other groups furnishing pro bono publico representation promotes the enforcement of the underlying statutes as much as an award to privately retained counsel. Legal services organizations often must ration their limited financial and manpower resources. Allowing them to recover fees enhances their capabilities to assist in the enforcement of congressionally favored individual rights, (citations omitted.)”
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.