Thomas v. Cisneros’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently October 2015 · most notably Griffiths v. Cigna Corp. (1993), Metzger v. Sebek (1994)
4 federal appellate · 29 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 Gibbs v. General Motors Corporation · Box v. Bates · Citizens First National Bank of Tyler v. Cinco Exploration Co. · Sebastian v. Cheney · Westchester Fire Insurance Co. v. Alvarez
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A private person who gives to a public official information of another’s supposed criminal misconduct, of which the official is ignorant, obviously causes the institution of such subsequent proceedings as the official may begin on his own initiative, but giving the information or even making an accusation of criminal misconduct does not constitute a procurement of the proceedings initiated by the officer if it is left entirely to his discretion to initiate the proceedings or not. When a private person gives to a prosecuting officer information that he believes to be true, and the officer in the exercise of his uncontrolled discretion initiates criminal proceedings based upon that information, the informer is not liable under the rule stated in [§ 653] even though the information proves to be false and his belief was one that a reasonable man would not entertain. The exercise of the officer’s discretion makes the initiation of the prosecution his own and protects from liability the person whose information or accusation has led the officer to initiate the proceedings. If, however, the information is known by the giver to be false, an intelligent exercise of the officer’s discretion becomes impossible, and a prosecution based upon it is procured by the person giving the false information. In order to charge a private person with responsibility for the initiation of proceedings by a public official, it must therefore appear that his desire to have the proceedings initiated, expr”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““Because we deem the element of causation to be determinative of this case, we will discuss only this issue. This element of malicious prosecution can be caused by the defendant or through the defendant’s aid or cooperation [citations omitted]. It is not necessary for the defendant to have signed the complaint or to have communicated the subject matter to the person who did if the making of the statement proximately caused the prosecution that followed [citations omitted]. However, it is a corollary to this rule ... if the defendant stated the facts fully and fairly to the District Attorney ... and such officer determines that such facts constitutes a crime and proceeds to formulate the necessary papers to set the prosecution in motion, the ... defendant is not liable in an action for malicious prosecution, since, if there is any fault, it is not the defendants’’ (emphasis added).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“(1) the commencement of a criminal prosecution against plaintiff; (2) which has been caused by the defendant or through defendant's aid or cooperation; (3) which terminated in favor of the plaintiff; (4) that plaintiff was innocent; (5) that there was no probable cause for such proceedings; (6) that it was done with malice; and (7) resulted in damage to plaintiff.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.