Whitfield v. Meléndez-Rivera’s Empirical Analysis
431 F.3d 1 · 2005
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 84 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 130 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2022 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), Dodds v. Richardson (2010)
28 federal appellate · 84 district · 3 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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Anderson v. Creighton · Graham v. Connor · City of Canton v. Harris · Duncan v. Walker
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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“so well settled and widespread that the policymaking officials of the municipality can be said to have either actual or constructive knowledge of it yet did nothing to end the practice.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a safe harbor for public officials acting under the color of state law who would otherwise be liable under [ section 1983 ] for infringing the constitutional rights of private parties.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) whether plaintiff's allegations, if true, establish a constitutional violation; (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation; and (3) whether a similarly situated reasonable official would have understood that the challenged action violated the constitutional right at issue.”
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.