Fletcher v. O'DONNELL’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently August 2017
2 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 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 28 U.S.C. § 1920 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Kentucky v. Graham · Blum v. Stenson · Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. · Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School District
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Civil rights defense work performed for the City of Allentown carries with it guaranteed pay and a readily-accessible client. No such guarantee exists for counsel representing a civil rights plaintiff. These plaintiffs are often poor, and fees are thus likely to depend upon success in the litigation. Moreover, these cases are often difficult and unpopular to bring, as Mr. Orloski testified. Given the contingent nature of a plaintiff’s civil rights suit, it is perfectly reasonable for the hourly rate to exceed that often paid for defense work.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Mr. Orloski is a competent attorney who secured a modest award for his client. As I held earlier, his hourly rate, though somewhat high, is justifiable in part because he is a competent civil rights attorney. I find that this already augmented rate adequately compensated Mr. Orloski for his skills, and that the results in this case are well within the reasonable expectations of a client____ I therefore”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“It would be falsely precise to reduce the request for time spent on the fee petition by the amount of the request not granted, though. Much of the time spent here would have been spent on any fee petition, and so the incremental time spent on unsuccessful [elements] is lower than the dollar value they represent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.