Berry v. CIGNA/RSI-CIGNA’s Empirical Analysis
975 F.2d 1188 · 1992
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 110 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Edwards v. City of Houston (1996), Ball v. City of Chicago (1993)
23 federal appellate · 1 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 Link v. Wabash Railroad · Boazman v. Economics Laboratory, Inc. · Rogers v. Kroger Co. · Silas v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. · Price v. Digital Equipment 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 110 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“only when (1) there is a clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the plaintiff, and (2) the district court has expressly determined that lesser sanctions would not prompt diligent prosecution, or the record shows that the district court employed lesser sanctions that proved to be futile.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]e will affirm dismissals with prejudice for failure to prosecute only when (1) there is a clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the plaintiff, and (2) the district court has expressly determined that lesser sanctions would not prompt diligent prosecution, or the record shows that the district court employed lesser sanctions that proved to be futile. Additionally, in most cases where this Court has affirmed dismissals with prejudice, we found at least one of three aggravating factors: (1) delay caused by the plaintiff himself and not his attorney; (2) actual prejudice to the defendant; or (3) delay caused by intentional conduct.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] dismissal with prejudice 'is an extreme sanction that deprives the litigant of the opportunity to pursue his claim,' ... this [c]ourt has limited the district court's discretion in dismissing cases with prejudice.”
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.