In Re Lear Corp. Shareholder Litigation’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 2 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently July 2025
1 federal appellate · 2 district · 11 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
Relies on Aronson v. Lewis · Brehm v. Eisner · Smith v. Van Gorkom · Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. · Unocal Corp. v. Mesa Petroleum Co.
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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“what is arguably the hardest question in corporation law: what is the standard of liability to apply to independent directors with no motive to injure the corporation when they are accused of indolence in monitoring the corporation’s compliance with its legal responsibilities? The question is difficult for many reasons, including the reality that even the most diligent board cannot guarantee that an entire organization will always comply with the law. But it must be answered because one of the central justifications for the use of independent directors is that they are well positioned to oversee management, particularly by monitoring the processes used by the”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Freuler v. Parker“Directors are not thermometers, existing to register the ever-changing sentiments of stockholders.... During their term of office, directors may take good faith actions that they believe will benefit stockholders, even -if they realize that the stockholders do not agree with them.”); Paramount Commc’ns Inc. v. Time Inc., 1989 WL 79880 , at (Del.Ch. July 14, 1989) (Allen, C.) (”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[W]here the fiduciary intentionally acts with a purpose other than that of advancing the best interests of the corporation, where the fiduciary acts with the intent to violate applicable positive law, or where the fiduciary intentionally fails to act in the face of a known duty to act, demonstrating a conscious disregard for his duties.”
1 later decision 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.