Bonner v. Coughlin’s Empirical Analysis
545 F.2d 565 · 1976
Citation profile
85 federal appellate · 17 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 191 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2014 · most notably Parratt v. Taylor (1981), Hudson v. Palmer (1984)
85 federal appellate · 17 district · 20 state decisions — followed in 13 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Wolff v. McDonnell · Monroe v. Pape · Paul v. Davis · Fuentes v. Shevin · Griffin v. Breckenridge
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 191 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It seems to us that there is an important difference between a challenge to an established state procedure as lacking in due process and a property damage claim arising out of the misconduct of state officers. In the former situation the facts satisfy the most literal reading of the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition against “State” deprivations of property; in the latter situation, however, even though there is action “under color of” state law sufficient to bring the amendment into play, the state action is not necessarily complete. For in a case such as this the law of Illinois provides, in substance, that the plaintiff is entitled to be made whole for any loss of property occasioned by the unauthorized conduct of the prison guards. We may reasonably conclude, therefore, that the existence of an adequate state remedy to redress property damage inflicted by state officers avoids the conclusion that there has been any constitutional deprivation of property without due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“'the state action is not necessarily complete.... [T]he existence of an adequate state remedy to redress property damage inflicted by state officers avoids the conclusion that there has been any constitutional deprivation of property without due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is no answer that the State has a law which if enforced would give relief. The federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked. Hence the fact that Illinois by its constitution and laws outlaws unreasonable searches and seizures is no barrier to the present suit in the federal court.””
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.