Downs v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
522 F.2d 990 · 1975
Citation profile
69 federal appellate · 20 district · 26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 158 later decisions — most recently February 2022 · most notably Sterling v. Velsicol Chemical Corp. (1988), Leonhard v. United States (1980)
69 federal appellate · 20 district · 26 state decisions — followed in 12 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.
Relationships
Relies on Scheuer v. Rhodes · United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · Monroe v. Pape · Dalehite v. United States · Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce 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 158 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... Judgment is exercised in almost every human endeavor. It is not the mere exercise of judgment, however, which immunizes the United States from liability for the torts of its employees____ Driving an automobile involves judgment____ Yet the automobile accident caused by a federal employee while on the job is the archetypal claim which Congress sought to place in the Courts. If exercise of judgment were the standard for applying the discretionary function exception, a host of cases would have been wrongly decided. Id. at 995.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Congress intended 'discretionary functions' to encompass those activities which entail a formulation of governmental policy, whatever the rank of those so engaged,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) Any claim based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care, in the execution of a statute or regulation, whether or not such statute or regulation be valid, or based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused....”
4 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.