Westfall v. Erwin’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
310 federal appellate · 120 district · 96 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 845 later decisions (30 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2024 · most notably Berkovitz v. United States (1988), Burns v. Reed (1991)
310 federal appellate · 120 district · 96 state decisions — followed in 20 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
reviewedJohns v. Pettibone Corp. (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1442
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Barr v. Matteo · Forrester v. White · Doe v. McMillan
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 845 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“contravenes the basic tenet that individuals be held accountable for their wrongful conduct,”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Congress is in the best position to provide guidance for the complex and often highly empirical inquiry into whether absolute immunity is warranted in a particular context.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In determining the propriety of shielding an official from suit under the circumstances, this Court has long favored a “functional inquiry —immunity attaches to particular official functions, not to particular offices. See, e.g., Forrester v. White, [484] U.S. [219], [-] [ 108 S.Ct. 538, 542 , 98 L.Ed.2d 555 ] (1988); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 811-812 [ 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2734-35 , 73 L.Ed.2d 396 ] (1982); Doe McMillan, 412 U.S. 306, 319-320 [ 93 S.Ct. 2018, 2028-29 , 36 L.Ed.2d 912 ] (1973); Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 564, 572-573 [ 79 S.Ct. 1335, 1340-41 , 3 L.Ed.2d 1434 ] (1959). The adoption of this functional approach reflects the Court’s concern, expressed in Doe, that federal officials be granted absolute immunity only insofar as the benefits of immunity outweigh the cost. Because the benefits of official immunity lie principally in avoiding corruption of governmental functions, the inquiry into whether absolute immunity is warranted in a particular context depends on the degree to which the official function would suffer under the threat of prospective litigation.”
5 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.