Gordon B. Phillips, as Guardian of James G. Phillips v. Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, an Indiana Corporation’s Empirical Analysis
978 F.3d 302 · 1993
Citation profile
60 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 136 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably Doe v. Group Hospitalization & Medical Services (1993), Lang v. Long-Term Disability Plan of Sponsor Applied Remote Technology, Inc. (1997)
60 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 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 Firestone Tire and Rubber Company v. Bruch · Pilot Life Insurance v. Dedeaux · Latimer v. Stainer · Hendrick v. Avent · Gracey v. Reigle
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 136 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“we interpret the terms of the policy 'in an ordinary and popular sense as would a [person] of average intelligence and experience.'”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[r]ules of interpretation are tie-breakers, even when the words being interpreted appear in insurance policies.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to do otherwise 'would require us to ... afford less protection to employees and their beneficiaries than they enjoyed before ERISA was enacted,' a result that would be at odds with the congressional purposes of promoting the interests of employees and beneficiaries and protecting contractually defined benefits.”
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.