Harter v. Vernon’s Empirical Analysis
101 F.3d 334 · 1996
Citation profile
24 federal appellate · 7 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 76 later decisions — most recently June 2024 · most notably Manders v. Lee (2003), Alkire v. Irving (2003)
24 federal appellate · 7 district · 7 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 Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Will v. Michigan Department of State Police · Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida · Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc. · Hess v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation
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 76 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Personhood” vel non does not provide a basis for a state official to avoid suit in federal court. Rather, a defendant state official must plead Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Eleventh Amendment is a bar to the jurisdiction of a federal court, and as such, it precedes the statutory question of “personhood” under § 1983. Once the Eleventh Amendment inquiry is complete, there is no need to consider “personhood.” If an official or entity is not immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment that official or entity is a “person subject to suit under § 1983.... ” The opposite is also true, if the Eleventh Amendment applies, the entity or official is not a person under § 1983.... Therefore, federal courts should approach these issues solely under the rubric of the Eleventh Amendment, and should not consider an argument of “personhood” under § 1983.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[a]s a matter of federal law, a court may consider both the relevant state statutes, regulations, and constitutional provisions which characterize the entity, and the holdings of state courts on the question. A federal court may “give deference to the rationale used by a state court,” but the holding is not dispositive as a matter of federal law.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If, on the other hand, the state's treasury will not be affected by a judgment in the action, then the availability of immunity . . . must be determined by resort to the other relevant considerations referenced by the Court.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.