Lunsford v. Bennett’s Empirical Analysis
17 F.3d 1574 · 1994
Citation profile
43 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 90 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably DeWalt v. Carter (2000), Antonelli v. Sheahan (1996)
43 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 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 Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Estelle v. Gamble · Wolff v. McDonnell · Bell v. Wolfish · Parratt v. Taylor
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 90 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“contemporary bounds of decency of a mature, civilized society.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he record contains no evidence that the noise levels posed a serious risk of injury to the plaintiffs. Subjecting a prisoner to a few hours of periodic loud noises that merely annoy, rather than injure the prisoner does not demonstrate a disregard for the prisoner's welfare”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“minimal civilized measure of life's necessities.”
2 later decisions 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.