84 Md. App. 521 - Johnson v. Baker’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
2 district · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently December 2021 · most notably 93 Md. App. 168 - Fraidin v. Weitzman (1992), 89 Md. App. 448 - Fowler v. Printers II, Inc. (1991)
2 district · 38 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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Mathews v. Eldridge · Morrissey v. Brewer · Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper · Jurldine A. Donaldson v. Paul v. Clark · White v. General Motors Corp.
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In any civil action, if the court finds that the conduct of any party in maintaining or defending any proceeding was in bad faith or without substantial justification the court may require the offending party or the attorney advising the conduct or both of them to pay the adverse party the costs of the proceeding and the reasonable expenses, including reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred by the adverse party in opposing it.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] court must make an evidentiary finding of ‘bad faith’ or ‘lack of substantial justification’ before it imposes Rule 1-341 sanctions. The existence of bad faith or lack of substantial justification is a question of fact subject to a ‘clearly erroneous’ standard of review. Upon a finding of bad faith or lack of substantial justification, the court must decide whether to award attorney’s fees and costs. On appeal, the appellate court reviews the propriety of the sanction imposed under an abuse of discretion standard and will not disturb the sanction unless the lower court abused its discretion.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“At the trial level, Johnson’s theory of his case was that a third party may sue an attorney for advice which the attorney has given a client on a matter in which the attorney has no personal interest. When pressed by the judge, Johnson could offer no Maryland case law, nor case law from any other jurisdiction, to support that theory. The judge considered Johnson’s proposition a “fundamentally erratical change in the law” which would radically change the nature of attorney-client relationships and create a litigation explosion. The judge concluded that Johnson’s claim was “frivolous ... [and without] any basis in law or in fact based on [Johnson’s] allegations.” Our prior opinion on this case was part of the record before the circuit court judge at the sanctions hearing. In it, we explained why Johnson had no cause of action and affirmed the circuit court’s dismissal of Johnson’s complaint and award of attorney’s fees to Blumenthal. In this appeal, Johnson still has not provided us with a viable legal theory or precedent that would justify his pursuit of his prior appeal to us. He begins by claiming that he has a “colorable claim,” which clearly has no basis in fact or in law, and then contends that he was entitled to continue the action because he had one appeal as of right. He appears to assume—erroneously—that an appeal of right can legitimize and give substance to an action that is otherwise without merit. (Footnote omitted)”
1 later decision 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.