Phelan v. Bell’s Empirical Analysis
8 F.3d 369 · 1993
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 3 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Thurman v. Yellow Freight Systems, Inc. (1996), Dambrot v. Central Michigan University (1995)
28 federal appellate · 3 district · 3 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 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975) · 20 U.S.C. § 1401 · 20 U.S.C. § 1415 · 28 U.S.C. § 1920 · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp. · Farrar v. Hobby · Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School District · White v. New Hampshire Department of Employment Security
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[m]uch of counsel’s time will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis. Such a lawsuit cannot be viewed as a series of discrete claims. Instead the district court should focus on the significance of the overall relief obtained by the plaintiff in relation to the hours reasonably expended on the litigation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A court abuses its discretion when it relies on clearly erroneous findings of fact, or when it improperly applies the law or uses an erroneous legal standard.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he due process hearings were dynamic and interactive, not static. Plaintiffs action resulted in a marked change in the legal relationship between the parties in a number of ways. First, plaintiff succeeded in obtaining a determination that SIBIS was a viable option for ... [her son].... Second, plaintiffs persistence brought about a definite change in ... [her son’s] legal relationship with defendants. Before the due process hearings, defendants proposed merely to continue an IEP that was admittedly unable to address, let alone reduce, ... [the child’s] SIB. Now, defendants are required to implement a new IEP with new approaches to ... [the child’s] SIB.”
2 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.