Dennis v. Sparks’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
800 federal appellate · 321 district · 100 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,552 later decisions (28 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2024 · most notably Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. (1982), Briscoe v. W (1983)
800 federal appellate · 321 district · 100 state decisions — followed in 23 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 242 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Monroe v. Pape · Imbler v. Pachtman · United States v. Nixon · Pierson v. Ray
Cited together with Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Stump v. Sparkman · Harlow v. Fitzgerald
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 2,552 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“willful participant in joint action with the State or its agents.”
55 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“merely resorting to the courts and being on the winning side of a lawsuit does not make a party a co-conspirator or a joint actor with the judge.”
35 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] Sec. 1983 defendant need not be an officer of the state. It is enough if he is a willful participant in joint activity with the state or its agents.”
13 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.