Zankel v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
921 F.2d 432 · 1990
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 4 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently October 2015 · most notably McGregor v. United States (1991), Jones v. Frank (1992)
12 federal appellate · 4 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 28 U.S.C. § 2675
Relies on Wrenn v. Gould · In re Disbarment of Morrison · Shihshu Walter Wei v. State of Hawaii · Messenger v. United States · Lovelace v. Acme Markets, 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If a service of the summons and complaint is not made upon a defendant within 120 days after the filing of the complaint and the party on whose behalf such service was required cannot show good cause why such service was not made within that period, the action shall be dismissed as to that defendant without prejudice upon the court’s own initiative with notice to such party or upon motion ...””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If (1) necessary parties in the government have actual notice of a suit; (2) the government suffers no prejudice from a technical defect in service; (3) there is a justifiable excuse for the failure to serve properly; and (4) the plaintiff would be severely prejudiced if the complaint were dismissed, then courts should not construe Rule 4(d)(4) [Rule 4(i)’s predecessor] so rigidly as to deny plaintiffs relief from dismissal because of a technical defect in service.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The decision in Zankel was based on the court’s view that the government had engaged in an “apparently deliberate attempt to secure the demise of plaintiff’s claims” by lulling plaintiffs into believing' that they had successfully cured their service defect while holding in abeyance its own motion to dismiss until after the expiration of a statute of limitations.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Klein v. Williams
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.