Varrone v. Bilotti’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 federal appellate · 7 district · 2 state decisions

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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A ‘reasonable suspicion’ of wrongdoing is something stronger than a mere ‘hunch,’ but something weaker than probable cause.” To establish reasonable suspicion, “prison officials must point to specific objective facts and ra tional inferences that they are entitled to draw from those facts in light of their experience.” The standard requires “individualized suspicion, specifically directed to the person who is targeted for the strip search...” (citations omitted)”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cordero v. City of N.Y. · 229 F. Supp. 2d 259 - Sarnicola v. County of Westchester

2. “Qualified immunity shields government officials from liability for civil damages as a result of them performance of discretionary functions, and serves to protect government officials from the burdens of costly, but insubstantial lawsuits. Government actors performing discretionary functions are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Even where the plaintiffs federal rights and the scope of the official’s permissible conduct are clearly established, the qualified immunity defense protects a government actor if it was objectively reasonable for him to believe that his actions were lawful at the time of the challenged act. The objective reasonableness test is met-and the defendant is entitled to qualified immunity-if officers of reasonable competence could disagree on the legality of the defendant’s actions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 178 F. Supp. 2d 139 - Adoption Services of Connecticut, Inc. v. Ragaglia

3. “if any reasonable trier of fact could find that the defendants’ actions were objectively unreasonable, then the defendants are not entitled to summary judgment. An officer’s actions are objectively unreasonable when no officer of reasonable competence could have made the same choice in similar circumstances ... Thus, if the court determines that the only conclusion a rational jury could reach is that reasonable officers would disagree about the legality of the defendants’ conduct under the circumstances, summary judgment for the officers is appropriate.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 540 F. Supp. 2d 501 - Jean-Laurent v. Wilkinson