Hardin v. Straub’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
300 federal appellate · 66 district · 43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 733 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Heck v. Humphrey (1994), Wallace v. Kato (2007)
300 federal appellate · 66 district · 43 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Wilson v. Garcia · Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc. · Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY v. Tomanio · United States v. Price · Owens v. Okure
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 733 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Any period of limitation ... is understood fully only in the context of the various circumstances that suspend it from running against a particular cause of action. Although any statute of limitations is necessarily arbitrary, the length of the period allowed for instituting suit inevitably reflects a value judge ment.... In virtually all statutes of limitations the chronological length of the limitation period is interrelated with provisions regarding tolling, revival, and questions of application. In borrowing a state period of limitation for application to a federal cause of action, a federal court is relying on the State’s wisdom in setting a limit, and exceptions thereto, on the prosecution of a closely analogous claim.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Limitations periods in § 1983 suits are to be determined by reference to the appropriate state statute of limitations and the coordinate tolling rules....”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“[a] State's decision to toll the statute of limitations ... does not frustrate § 1983's compensation goal [but instead] enhances the inmate's ability to bring suit and recover damages for injuries”
3 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.