Clarkson v. Coughlin’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently April 2018
4 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. § 1404 · 29 U.S.C. § 794 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on City of Los Angeles v. Lyons · Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno · United States v. Munsingwear, Inc. · Sosna v. Iowa · United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]here is no `magic minimum number that breathes life into a class ... and lack of knowledge of the exact number of persons affected is not a bar to certification[.]'”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The class action device is particularly well-suited in actions brought by prisoners due to the 'fluid composition' of the prison population ... [and] generally tend[s] to be the norm in actions such as this.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“All persons ... may be joined in one action as defendants if there is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative, any right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences and if any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action. A ... defendant need not be interested in obtaining or defending against all the relief demanded.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Clarkson v. Coughlin
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.