Smith v. Ambrogio’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 16 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently February 1994 · most notably Strauss v. City of Chicago (1985), Owens v. Haas (1979)
17 federal appellate · 16 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 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985
Relies on Conley v. Gibson · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Estelle v. Gamble · Monroe v. Pape
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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] claim of municipal liability based on an alleged policy reflected by a pattern of prior episodes will inevitably risk placing an entire police department on trial. Sweeping discovery will be sought to unearth episodes in which allegedly similar unconstitutional actions have been taken, and the trial will then require litigation of every episode occurring in the community that counsel believes can be shown to involve a similar constitutional violation. Even if a trial of that scope is warranted by a complaint that does allege overt acts with requisite particularity, neither a federal court nor a municipality should be burdened with such an action unless a detailed pleading is presented.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[A] complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.... The respondents also argue that the complaint failed to set forth specific facts to support its general allegations of discrimination and that its dismissal is therefore proper. The decisive answer to this is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim. To the contrary, all the Rules require is “a short and plain statement of the claim” that will give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[t]hough Monell was concerned with a general policy enforced against a large class of individuals, it seems reasonable to conclude that its teachings are equally applicable to a specific policy directed at just one individual, as long as the pleaded facts support the inference that unconstitutional action was taken against the individual pursuant to such policy.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.