Gonzalez v. Lee County Housing Authority’s Empirical Analysis
161 F.3d 1290 · 1998
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 84 later decisions — most recently December 2023 · most notably Angie Chesser v. Amos Sparks (2001), Alexander v. Fulton County (2000)
20 federal appellate · 3 district · 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. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985 · 42 U.S.C. § 3601 (§ 801 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968)) · 42 U.S.C. § 3602 (§ 802 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968)) · 42 U.S.C. § 3604 (§ 804 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968)) · 42 U.S.C. § 3613 (§ 813 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968)) · 42 U.S.C. § 3617 (§ 818 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968))
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co.
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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The purpose of qualified immunity is to protect government officials from liability for conduct they could not reasonably have known was unlawful. Much of federal constitutional law and statutory law is unpredictable and unclear in its application to particular circumstances. Thus, as the Court states, we require materially similar case law or a very specific statute before saying that a government official should have known her conduct was unlawful. There is no specific pre-existing case law applicable to this ease. On the other hand, we have recognized that in the extremely rare case a government official’s conduct may be so egregious, in fact evil, as to be obviously contrary to federal law, so that no case law or statute needs to have recognized previously that materially similar conduct is unlawful. The facts alleged here, if true, make this that extremely rare case. More than a century after the Civil War and more than a quarter century after the great crusade for civil rights for black persons in this country, no government housing official could reasonably believe that she may lawful discriminate against black persons on the basis of race, or that she might punish another public official for refusing to discriminate in the course of her official duties against black persons on the basis of race.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any person in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his having aided or encouraged any other person in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by section 3603, 3604, 3065, or 3603 of this title.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“For the law to be clearly established, the law “must have earlier been developed in such a concrete and factually defined context to make it obvious to all reasonable government actors, in the defen dant’s place, that ‘what he is doing’ violates federal law.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.