Woods v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
60 F.3d 1161 · 1995
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 4 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 275 later decisions — most recently October 2020 · most notably Thaddeus-X v. Blatter (1999), Henry Rauser v. Martin Horn in His Official Capacity As Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (2001)
44 federal appellate · 4 district · 12 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1997E
Relies on Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Heck v. Humphrey
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 275 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“but for the retaliatory motive the complained of incident ... would not have occurred.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Brown v. Taylor · DeMarco v. Davis“The prospect of endless claims of retaliation on the part of inmates would disrupt prison officials in the discharge of their most basic duties. Claims of retaliation must therefore be regarded with skepticism, lest federal courts embroil themselves in every disciplinary act that occurs in state penal institutions.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“first inquire whether [Plaintiff] has alleged the violation of a clearly established constitutional right. For a right to be clearly established, there does not have to be a prior case directly on point, but the unlawfulness of the precipitating acts must be apparent in light of the existing law. [The Court] then inquire[s] whether the defendant’s conduct was objectively reasonable in light of the legal rules clearly established at the time of the events in issue. Thus, even if [the Court] find[s] a violation of [Plaintiffs] constitutional rights, the individual defendants are immune from liability if reasonable public officials could differ on the lawfulness of their actions. The Court need not reach this second inquiry, however, if [Plaintiff) fails to tender the requisite summary judgment evidence that the individual defendants violated a clearly established right.”
1 later decision 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.