Behrens v. Pelletier’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
1,645 federal appellate · 232 district · 83 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,389 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), 25 Cal. 4th 826 - Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001)
1,645 federal appellate · 232 district · 83 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
reviewedPelletier v. Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 1292 · 28 U.S.C. § 2072
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Anderson v. Creighton · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Mitchell v. Forsyth
Cited together with Mitchell v. Forsyth · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Johnson v. Jones · Anderson v. Creighton · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp.
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 3,389 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“from the plaintiff's claim, and hence there is no”
79 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“determine whether all of the conduct that the district court 'deemed sufficiently supported for purposes of summary judgment' violated the plaintiff's clearly established federal rights”
45 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`shield[s] [government agents] from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'”
23 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.