Wilson v. Layne’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
1,219 federal appellate · 819 district · 237 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,405 later decisions (53 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), Pearson v. Callahan (2009)
1,219 federal appellate · 819 district · 237 state decisions — followed in 34 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
reviewedWilson v. Layne (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3105 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Anderson v. Creighton · Graham v. Connor · Payton v. New York
Cited together with Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Hope v. Pelzer · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.
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 4,405 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all, and if so, proceed to determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.”
68 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
48 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.”
43 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.