Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
9,090 federal appellate · 6,198 district · 2,450 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40,845 later decisions (291 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), Illinois v. Gates (1983)
9,090 federal appellate · 6,198 district · 2,450 state decisions — followed in 49 states
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.
Appellate journey
reviewed12 Fair empl.prac.cas. 836, 11 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 10,755 Jane Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, Defendants (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 20 U.S.C. § 1601 · 20 U.S.C. § 1702 (§ 203 of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) · 20 U.S.C. § 1703 · 20 U.S.C. § 1710 · 20 U.S.C. § 1718 · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Mapp v. Ohio
Cited together with Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati · City of Canton v. Harris · Monroe v. Pape · City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle
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 40,845 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] local government may not be sued under § 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents. Instead, it is when execution of a government’s policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is responsible under § 1983.”
1,182 later decisions quote this exact passage“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
203 later decisions quote this exact passage“generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.”
128 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Kentucky v. Graham · Hafer v. Melo
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.