Williams v. Liefer’s Empirical Analysis
491 F.3d 710 · 2007
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently April 2025 · most notably Gayton v. McCoy (2010), Grieveson v. Anderson (2008)
18 federal appellate · 1 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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. · Duncan v. Walker · SAUCIER v. KATZ Et Al. · Beyerbach v. Sears
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Clearly, expert testimony that the plaintiff suffered because of a delay in treatment would satisfy the requirement. On the other hand, evidence of a plaintiffs diagnosis and treatment, standing alone, is insufficient if it does not assist the jury in determining whether a delay exacerbated the plaintiff’s condition or otherwise harmed him.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The purpose of qualified immunity is to shield public officers from liability where a change in the law or enduring legal uncertainty makes it difficult for the officer to assess the lawfulness of the act in question before he does it. Whether a delay in providing medical treatment has negatively affected a plaintiffs well-being is an assessment that is made in hindsight, so it cannot affect an officer’s initial decision to seek treatment for an inmate. In other words, because the eventual presence or absence of verifying medical evidence cannot bear on an officer’s decision to seek or deny treatment, it cannot provide a basis for immunity.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Al-Turki v. Robinson“'verifying medical evidence' that the delay”
1 later decision 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.