Davis v. Carter’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Conduct by a government actor [as opposed to statutes enacted by a legislature] will rise to the level of a substantive due process violation only if the act can be characterized as arbitrary or conscience-shocking in a constitutional sense. See [County of Sacramento v.] Lewis, 523 U.S. [833,] 847, 118 S.Ct. 1708 , 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 [(1998)]. The concept of conscience-shocking conduct “duplicates no traditional category of common-law fault, but rather points clearly away from liability, or clearly toward it, only at the ends of the tort law’s spectrum of culpability.” Id. at 848, 118 S.Ct. 1708 . The Supreme Court has made clear “the due process guarantee does not entail a body of constitutional law imposing liability whenever someone cloaked with state authority causes harm.” Id. Thus, “the Fourteenth Amendment is not a ‘font of tort law that can be used, through section 1983, to convert state tort claims into federal causes of action.” Neal v. Fulton County Bd. of Educ., 229 F.3d 1069, 1074 (11th Cir.2000) (citing Lewis, 523 U.S. at 848 , 118 S.Ct. 1708 ). To rise to the conscience-shocking level, conduct most likely must be “intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any government interest[.]” Lewis, 523 U.S. at 849 , 118 S.Ct. at 1718 .”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Echols v. Lawton · McKenzie ex rel. C.M. v. Talladega City Board of Education

2. “In Neal , the court concluded a high school coach’s conduct rose to the level of a constitutional violation. 229 F.3d at 1076 . There, the coach intentionally struck a student with a metal weight lock, knocking the student’s eye out of its socket, as a form of punishment for his involvement in a fight with another student. Id. at 1071 . In finding a violation of the student’s substantive due process rights, the court reasoned that the school official “intentionally us[ed] an obviously excessive amount of force that presented a reasonably foreseeable risk of serious bodily injury.” Id. at 1076 . Importantly, it made clear the claims of excessive corporal punishment shaped the outcome. Id. Similarly, in Kirkland v. Greene County Board of Education, 347 F.3d 903 (11th Cir.2003), the court concluded a high school principal violated a student’s constitutional rights after he struck the student with a metal cane in the head, ribs, and back for disciplinary reasons. Id. at 904-05 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 936 F. Supp. 2d 1300 - Moore ex rel. the Estate of A.M. v. Chilton County Board of Education

3. “nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors. The Clause is phrased as a limitation on the State's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 301 Ga. App. 547 - King v. Pioneer Regional Educational Service Agency