Harlow v. Fitzgerald’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
11,977 federal appellate · 6,057 district · 2,261 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39,385 later decisions (223 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), Illinois v. Gates (1983)
11,977 federal appellate · 6,057 district · 2,261 state decisions — followed in 48 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
reviewedHalperin v. Kissinger (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1505 · 28 U.S.C. § 1254 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 5 U.S.C. § 7211
Relies on Scheuer v. Rhodes · Katz v. United States · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Imbler v. Pachtman
Cited together with Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Malley v. Briggs · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York
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 39,385 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
2,400 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right?”
55 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How later courts have treated this case
Across 80 classified citations — whether each later court relied on, limited, or rejected this decision:
- 41followed
- 37explained
- 2cited without characterization
Treatment is classified from each citing court's own sentence. This is a running sample — coverage grows as the classification pass proceeds; overrulings are also tracked authoritatively in the case status.