Johnson v. Lankford’s Empirical Analysis
245 U.S. 541 · 1918
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 11 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2008 · most notably Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman (1984), State of Missouri Southwestern Bell Telephone Co v. Public Service Commission of Missouri (1923)
19 federal appellate · 11 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
Relies on Hopkins v. Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina · Lankford v. Platte Iron Works Co. · Southern Pacific Co. v. Stewart
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]mmunity from suit is a high attribute of sovereignty—a prerogative of the State itself—which cannot be availed of by public agents when sued for their own torts. The Eleventh Amendment was not intended to afford them freedom from liability in any case where, under color of their office, they have injured one of the State's citizens. To grant them such immunity would be to create a privileged class free from liability for wrongs inflicted or injuries threatened. . . . Besides, neither a State nor an individual can confer upon an agent authority to commit a tort so as to excuse the perpetrator. In such cases the law of agency has no application—the wrongdoer is treated as a principal and individually liable for the damages inflicted and subject to injunction against the commission of acts causing irreparable injury.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“To answer it otherwise would be to assert, we think, that whatever an officer does, even in contravention of the laws of the State, is state action, identifies him with it and makes the redress sought against him a claim against the State and therefore prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment. Surely an officer of a State may be delinquent without involving the State in delinquency, indeed, may injure the State by delinquency as well as some resident of the State, and be amenable to both.”
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.