Petta v. Rivera’s Empirical Analysis
143 F.3d 895 · 1998
Citation profile
37 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 91 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably McClendon v. City of Columbia (2002), Gobert v. Caldwell (2006)
37 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 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 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 1391 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Anderson v. Creighton · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp.
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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`[a] police officer who terrorizes a civilian by brandishing a cocked gun in front of that civilian's face may not cause physical injury, but he has certainly laid the building blocks for a section 1983 claim against him.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Robinson v. Solano County · Motley“seize” the vehicle in which plaintiff was a passenger, regardless of whether she was actually charged with any offense. The court would also note that, in her brief, plaintiff herself argues in the context of the Fourth Amendment standard. At any rate, this issue is largely immaterial, given that, in the court's view, plaintiff would not be able to prevail even if the Fourteenth Amendment standard were applied. That is, Officer Edwards’ actions were not “grossly disproportionate to the need for action under the circumstances” and were not”
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.