Colby v. Boyden’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 81 later decisions — most recently July 2019 · most notably McLenagan v. Karnes (1994), Heider v. Clemons (1991)
4 federal appellate · 52 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 New Jersey Department of Corrections v. Nash · James v. Jane · Messina v. Burden · Frazier v. City of Norfolk · Lentz v. Morris
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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] police officer, engaged in the delicate, dangerous, and potentially deadly job of vehicular pursuit, must make prompt, original, and crucial decisions in a highly stressful situation. Unlike the driver in routine traffic, the officer must make difficult judgments about the best means of effectuating the governmental purpose by embracing special risks in an emergency situation. Such situations involve necessarily discretionary, split-second decisions balancing grave personal risks, public safety concerns, and the need to achieve the governmental objective. The exercise of discretion is involved even in the initial decision to undertake the pursuit....”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage“(1) the nature of the function the employee performs; (2) the extent of the government’s interest and involvement in the function; (3) the degree of control and direction exercised over the employee by the government; and (4) whether the act in question involved the exercise of discretion and judgment.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“absence of slight diligence, or the want of even scant care.'”
5 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.