Williams v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
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 Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · Wood v. Strickland · Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc. · Whirl v. Kern · Knighton v. Watkins
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Though ‘authorization’, ‘participation’ and ‘ratification’ are fairly elastic terms, they focus in on a relevant issue, that is, the behavior of the sheriff himself, without precluding assessing liability against the sheriff for what, by not investigating, he may have ratified.” Williams v. Thomas, 511 F.Supp. 535 , 540 (N.D.Tex.1981).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Jauch v. Corley
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.