Kelly v. Curtis’s Empirical Analysis
21 F.3d 1544 · 1994
Citation profile
56 federal appellate · 4 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 154 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Lassiter v. Alabama (1994), Cottrell v. Caldwell (1996)
56 federal appellate · 4 district · 4 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. § 1367 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Brady v. State of Maryland · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth
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 154 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If case law, in factual terms, has not staked out a bright line, qualified immunity almost always protects the defendant.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“‘when needed, ... use special verdicts or written interrogatories to the jury to resolve disputed facts before the judge rules on the qualified-immunity question.’ ” Id. at 1547 (citations omitted); see also Swint, 51 F.3d at 992 (”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'rulings on summary judgment motions' are 'the facts for present purposes,' but they 'may not be the actual facts.'”
3 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.