Murphy v. AA Mathews’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 1 district · 35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently January 2019 · most notably Mattco Forge, Inc. v. Arthur Young & Co. (1997), Business Men's Assurance Co. of America v. Graham (1994)
8 federal appellate · 1 district · 35 state decisions — followed in 13 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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Butz v. Economou · Briscoe v. W · Oates v. Safeco Insurance Co. of America · James v. Brown · 113 Wash. 2d 123 - Bruce v. Byrne-Stevens & Associates Engineers, 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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e do not believe that immunity was meant to or should apply to bar a suit against a privately retained professional who negligently provides litigation support services.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“Due to the hired expert witness' function, we do not believe that the policy of ensuring frank and objective testimony is furthered by granting immunity. In most circumstances, these experts possess no independent factual knowledge concerning the litigation. Instead, they are usually retained to assist a party in preparing and presenting its best case in exchange for a fee. In practice, they function as professionals selling their expert services rather than as an unbiased court servant. Thus, immunizing an expert retained and compensated for providing litigation support services, does not advance this underlying policy.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“the rationale for witness immunity . . . does not necessarily contemplate the situation of a professional who voluntarily agrees to assist a party in the litigation process for compensation.”
2 later decisions 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.