Robinson v. Bergstrom’s Empirical Analysis
579 F.2d 401 · 1978
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2014 · most notably Polk County v. Dodson (1981), Gibson v. City of Chicago (1990)
16 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 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 Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Gideon v. Wainwright · Monroe v. Pape · Imbler v. Pachtman
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Under an Illinois statute, in effect at the time of the acts complained of, the county public defender offices are established, compensation is permitted to be provided by the county, and offices are provided. The Champaign County Public Defender Office is plainly an instrumentality of the state. Under the [analysis in Chalfant v. Wilmington Institute, 574 F.2d 739 (3rd Cir. 1978)], this finding establishes state action. In Chalfant a private citizen, unpaid for his duties, was held to be acting under color of law because he acted on behalf of a state instrumentality. Similarly Bergstrom , a compensated employee of the county public defender’s office, acted on behalf of a state instrumentality. In view of the office’s inextricable relation to the state, no proof that the challenged acts are related to the state is necessary. The fact that the Public Defender is a state instrumentality is sufficient to show state action.” Id. at 407—408.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Johnson v. Harris“The Department ordered Novit not to exercise any police authority. For all intents and purposes Novit was dispossessed of all power: authority that cannot be translated into action is no authority at all. Lacking any authority to act as a police officer, Novit was not acting “under color of” State law when he shot Gibson.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“an error in his judgment regarding his caseload,”
1 later decision 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.