Davis v. Brady’s Empirical Analysis
143 F.3d 1021 · 1998
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently July 2023 · most notably Marsh v. Butler County (2001), Doe ex rel. Magee v. Covington County School District (2012)
17 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Estelle v. Gamble · Farmer v. Brennan · Joshua Deshaney, a Minor, by His Guardian Ad Litem, and Melody Deshaney,s v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, et al.
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“That the State once took temporary custody of [the child] does not alter the analysis, for when it returned him to his father's custody, it placed him in no worse position than that in which he would have been had it not acted at all; the State does not become the permanent guarantor of an individual's safety by having once offered him shelter.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In the present case, Davis’ complaint, as well as the evidence in the record, when read in the light most favorable to Davis, supports a claim that the Defendant officers acted with deliberate indifference to the threat of injury to him. They knew, or reasonably should have known, that Davis was drunk and unable to care for himself. Independent witnesses testified under oath that Davis was staggering after the Defendant Officers released him, slurring his words, seemed drunk, and could hardly stand up ... a toxicologist placed his blood alcohol level at the time of the improper pohce release at approximately .20%. At such a level, expert testimony indicated Davis would have had perception impairment, disorientation, confusion, and lack of coordination. Nevertheless, the Defendant Officers chose to act affirmatively to place Davis in harm’s way.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Significantly, we have previously suggested that this language in DeShaney stands for the proposition that “a duty to protect can arise in a noncustodial setting if the state does anything to render an individual more vulnerable to danger.” Unlike the situation in DeSha-ney, moreover, the defendant officers in this case placed Davis in a more dangerous situation than he was prior to their interference, when they drove him outside the Flint city limits and abandoned him on a dark and dangerous highway in an unfamiliar area.”
1 later decision 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.