Lampher v. Zagel’s Empirical Analysis
755 F.2d 99 · 1985
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2014 · most notably Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School District (1989), Palmer v. City of Chicago (1986)
15 federal appellate · 2 district ·
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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988 · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 706 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Hutto v. Finney · Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union of the United States, Inc.
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the plaintiff has succeeded on “any significant issue in the litigation which achieved some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing the suit,” the plaintiff has crossed the threshold to a fee award of some kind.... Thus, at a minimum, to be considered a prevailing party within the meaning of § 1988 the plaintiff must be able to point to a resolution of the dispute which changes the legal relationship between itself and the defendant. ... Where the plaintiff’s success on a legal claim can be characterized as purely technical or de minimus a district court would be justified in concluding that even the “generous formulation” we adopt today has not been satisfied.... The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry must be the material alteration of the legal ielationship of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute. Where such a change has occurred, the degree of the plaintiffs overall success goes to the reasonableness of the award under Hensley, not to the availability of a fee award vel non.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“conforms to the policy underlying the award of attorney’s fees in civil rights cases. Attorney’s fees are not designed merely to penalized defendants, but to encourage injured individuals to seek judicial relief. From this latter policy perspective it makes no difference whether plaintiffs suit yields favorable out of court results because a good faith defendant is brought to understand the illegality of his conduct and alters his behavior or because an unrepentant defendant grudgingly signs a consent decree to avoid continued litigation expenses in a lost cause. The key issue is the provocative role of the plaintiffs lawsuit, not the motivations of the defendant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“that regardless of the state court proceedings, plaintiffs prevailed in their federal [section 1983] court action,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.