White v. Towers’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 148 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 164 later decisions — most recently June 2019 · most notably 55 Cal. 2d 211 - Muskopf v. Corning Hospital District (1961), 55 Cal. 2d 224 - Lipman v. Brisbane Elementary School District (1961)
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 148 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 18 Cal. 2d 146 - Jaffe v. Stone · People v. Mayen · People v. Rochin · 56 Cal. App. 2d 667 - Schubkegel v. Gordino · 61 Cal. App. 2d 704 - Pulvermacher v. Los Angeles Co-Ordinating Committee for Aid to Jewish Refugees
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 164 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[W]e believe that sound reasons of public policy require that a peace officer, or other comparable official, be shielded by the .cloak of immunity from civil liability for alleged malicious prosecution.' At the outset, we are faced with an apparent conflict between the public policy of protecting individual citizens from oppressive official action and the equally well established policy of promoting the fearless and effective administration of the law for the whole people by protecting public officers from vindictive and retaliatory damage suits. However, we feel that both policies may at once be subserved by refusing to permit civil actions against the officer for alleged malicious prosecution and remanding the offended individual to his remedy under the penal statutes.... “We are not impressed with the argument that to extend such immunity to peace officers is a major step toward ‘statism.’ Such argument erroneously assumes that our law enforcement agencies are rife with persons who will abuse their powers, and that the imposition upon law enforcement officers of civil liability for alleged malicious prosecution is necessary to curb such abuse. But as has been said with respect to public prosecutors: ‘There is no great danger that abuse of power will be fostered by this exemption from civil liability, for the [peace officer] is at all times under the wholesome restraint imposed by the risk of being called to account criminally for official misconduct or of being ousted fro”
3 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.