Thomas v. Whalen’s Empirical Analysis
51 F.3d 1285 · 1995
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently March 2017 · most notably Kinney v. Weaver (2004), Chappel v. Montgomery County Fire Protection District No. 1 (1997)
15 federal appellate · 2 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))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Connick v. Myers · Rankin v. McPherson
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“For a right to be clearly established, the contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what [s]he is doing violates that right. To be outside the scope of qualified immunity, the very action in question need not have previously been held unlawful, but the unlawfulness must be apparent in light of pre-existing law.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]n the ordinary instance, to find a clearly established constitutional right, a district court must find binding precedent by the Supreme Court, its court of appeals or itself. In an extraordinary case, it may be possible for the decisions of other courts to clearly establish a principle of law. For the decisions of other courts to provide such “clearly established law,” these decisions must both point unmistakably to the unconstitutionality of the conduct complained of and be so clearly foreshadowed by applicable direct authority as to leave no doubt in the mind of a reasonable officer that his conduct, if challenged on constitutional grounds, would be found wanting.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the government official allegedly violated was clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct, 'the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct.' " Thomas, 51 F.3d at 1289 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. 2727). 18 When determining whether a right is "clearly established,”
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.