Poulis v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co.’s Empirical Analysis
747 F.2d 863 · 1984
Citation profile
89 federal appellate · 66 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 503 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Ocelot Oil Corporation v. Sparrow Industries (1988), United States v. Spedalieri (1990)
89 federal appellate · 66 district · 20 state decisions — followed in 10 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1927
Relies on Link v. Wabash Railroad · National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc. · Boesche v. Udall · United States v. $5551805 in US Currency Golden
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 503 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the extent of the party’s personal responsibility; (2) the prejudice to the adversary caused by the failure to meet scheduling orders and respond to discovery; (3) a history of dilatoriness; (4) whether the conduct of the party or the attorney was willful or in bad faith; (5) the effectiveness of sanctions other than dismissal, which entails an analysis of alternative sanctions; and (6) the meritoriousness of the claim or defense.”
87 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[d]ismissal must be a sanction of last, not first, resort,”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]e do not purport to use summary judgment standards. A claim, or defense, will be deemed meritorious when the allegations of the pleadings, if established at trial, would support recovery by plaintiff or would constitute a complete defense.”
6 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.