Schweiker v. Gordon’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently February 2003 · most notably Hays v. Jefferson County (1982), Turpin v. Mailet (1980)
4 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Estelle v. Gamble · Monroe v. Pape · Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. · Washington v. Davis
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. if O’Neill [and Rizzo] knew that these policemen were engaged in a continuous practice of unconstitutional conduct and nevertheless refused to take any action to rectify that situation, [they] could be held personally accountable for [their] intentional failure to prevent civil rights violations by these policemen.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The complaint asserts that the defendant police officers “have prior records of unlawful assaults upon citizens.” Plaintiff has not alleged that the policemen have been criminally convicted or found civilly liable for their actions on any occasion; if they occurred at all, what plaintiff labels “unlawful assaults” may have been justifiable police actions subjectively characterized as “unlawful” by disgruntled complainants or, indeed, by plaintiff himself. The accusation is particularly questionable in light of the fact that plaintiff admits he is unaware of the identity of either of the policemen. Plaintiff has shown no basis for his belief that they have prior records, and, in light of the absence of information as to their identity, it seems reasonable to require some factual basis for that belief. More to the point, plaintiff’s averment that [the police commissioner] had knowledge of this pattern of unlawful conduct is without factual averments in its support. Unless there had been an adjudication that a policeman acted wrongfully-a situation not alleged by plaintiff with regard to the past conduct of defendants in this case-it is highly unlikely that incidents involving a specific member of a police force the size of that of Philadelphia would come to the personal attention of the police commissioner. 1 think that before he can assert a claim such as this, a plaintiff must plead more specific facts in its support. The allegations should disclose a closer link to the polic”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[ajlthough they have not yet been identified, the policemen remain defendants in this action and, once plaintiff succeeds in identifying them, he may gain access to their personnel files through discovery. Should access to those files provide plaintiff with information which enables him to sufficiently allege a civil rights claim against O’Neill, plaintiff may amend his complaint to add. O’Neill as a defendant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Bready v. Geist
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.