Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc.
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
The seven confirmed treatments are listed below: Blanchard v. Bergeron rejected Johnson's contingent-fee ceiling; Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air and Perdue v. Kenny A. ex rel. Winn criticized the free-standing factor method; In re Woerner and Swedish Hospital Corp. v. Shalala declined to follow it in other settings; and Mashburn v. National Healthcare, Inc. and In re Temple Retirement Community, Inc. limited its reach. The other reviewed opinions applied Johnson, repeated those cases' history parentheticals, or placed the treatment words next to unrelated rulings.
3,567 later cases cite Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc.; 496 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc.?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Overruled in part
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The Supreme Court overruled Johnson's rule that a contingent-fee agreement caps a statutory fee award.
Blanchard v. Bergeron · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
Yet in the next sentence, Johnson says “In no event, however, should the litigant be awarded a fee greater than he is contractually bound to pay, if indeed the attorneys have contracted as to amount.” ... But we doubt that Congress embraced this aspect of Johnson ... But as we see it, a contingent-fee contract does not impose an automatic ceiling on an award of attorney’s fees, and to hold otherwise would be inconsistent with the statute and its policy and purpose.
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Criticized
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The Supreme Court criticized Johnson's free-standing factor method as subjective, insufficiently instructive, and prone to inconsistent results.
Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
One method, first employed by the Fifth Circuit in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F. 2d 714 (1974), involved consideration of 12 factors. ... This mode of analysis, however, was not without its shortcomings. Its major fault was that it gave very little actual guidance to district courts. Setting attorney’s fees by reference to a series of sometimes subjective factors placed unlimited discretion in trial judges and produced disparate results.
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The Supreme Court again criticized Johnson's factor method and contrasted it with the more objective lodestar calculation.
Perdue v. Kenny A. ex rel. Winn · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
One possible method was set out in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714, 717-719 (CA5 1974), ... which listed 12 factors that a court should consider in determining a reasonable fee. This method, however, “gave very little actual guidance to district courts. Setting attorney’s fees by reference to a series of sometimes subjective factors placed unlimited discretion in trial judges and produced disparate results.” ... unlike the Johnson approach, the lodestar calculation is “objective,” Hensley, supra, at 433, 103 S. Ct. 1933, 76 L. Ed. 2d 40, and thus cabins the discretion of trial judges, permits meaningful judicial review, and produces reasonably predictable results.
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Declined to follow
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The bankruptcy court declined to use Johnson's twelve-factor fee test because established Third Circuit standards governed the fee request.
In re Woerner · Bankr. E.D. Pa. · filed
We decline to follow Johnson when the standard of the Third Circuit has been well established.
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The D.C. Circuit declined to extend Johnson's statutory fee-shifting methodology to common-fund awards and adopted the percentage-of-the-fund method instead.
Swedish Hospital Corp. v. Shalala · D.C. Circuit · filed
After the emergence of Lindy and Johnson, the federal courts experimented with combinations of the Lindy lodestar and Johnson twelve-factor approaches in both common fund and fee-shifting contexts. In the context of the fee-shifting statutes, the lodestar approach but without enhancement for the Johnson factors has emerged as the prevailing method of fee calculation. ... In sum, we join the Third Circuit Task Force and the Eleventh Circuit, among others, in concluding that a percentage-of-the-fund method is the appropriate mechanism for determining the attorney fees award in common fund cases.
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Limited
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The court limited Johnson's twelve-factor approach to statutory fee awards and held that it no longer applies to common-fund fee awards.
Mashburn v. National Healthcare, Inc. · M.D. Ala. · filed
the Johnson and IAndy approaches are no longer applicable in common fund fee cases, but may be used only in determining statutory fee awards. This Court agrees with that analysis.
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The bankruptcy court limited Johnson by rejecting blanket adherence to fee-shifting precedents when setting compensation under Bankruptcy Code § 330.
In re Temple Retirement Community, Inc. · Bankr. W.D. Tex. · filed
What is more, it is equally irresponsible to give blanket adherence to judicial precedents such as Georgia Highways which have their genesis in fee-shifting statutes:
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Does this case still carry your argument?
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