Samuelson v. City of New Ulm’s Empirical Analysis
455 F.3d 871 · 2006
Citation profile
25 federal appellate · 8 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently April 2025 · most notably Cortez v. McCauley (2007), Peterson v. Kopp (2014)
25 federal appellate · 8 district · 7 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 Terry v. Ohio · Graham v. Connor · Duncan v. Walker · SAUCIER v. KATZ Et Al. · Tennessee v. Garner
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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Although there can be no question that the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable seizures of the person, it is also well established that not every push or shove violates the Fourth Amendment. The applicable test is “whether the force used to effect a particular seizure is reasonable.” In the context of a claim of excessive force, the “reasonableness” inquiry must be an objective one in that the court must only evaluate “whether the officers’ actions are ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.” The “ ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” “The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving' — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[U]nder § 1983, the plaintiff must raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether (1) the defendants acted under color of state law, and (2) the alleged wrongful conduct deprived the plaintiff of a constitutionally protected federal right.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The right to be free from excessive force in the context of an arrest is a clearly established right under the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Clark v. Clark
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.