William L. O'Brien v. Robert J. Digrazia’s Empirical Analysis
544 F.2d 543 · 1976
Citation profile
62 federal appellate · 53 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 180 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2019 · most notably Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly (2007), Scheid v. Fanny Farmer Candy Shops, Inc. (1988)
62 federal appellate · 53 district · 8 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
Relies on Conley v. Gibson · Roe v. Wade · Paul v. Davis · Griswold v. State of Connecticut · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson
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 180 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[W]e are not holding the pleader to an impossibly high standard; we recognize the policies behind Rule 8 and the concept of notice pleading. A plaintiff will not be thrown out of court for failing to plead facts in support of every arcane element of his claim. But when a complaint omits facts that, if they existed, would clearly dominate the case, it seems fair to assume that those facts do not exist.””
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Gomez v. Toledo · Hurney v. Carver“[W]hen a plaintiff under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 supplies facts to support his claim we do not think that Conley [v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 , 78 S.Ct. 99 , 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957) ] imposes a duty on the courts to conjure up unpleaded facts that might turn a frivolous claim of unconstitutional official action into a substantial one.... [W]hen a complaint omits facts that, if they existed would clearly dominate the case, it seems fair to assume that those facts do not exist.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.