Williams v. Wood’s Empirical Analysis
612 F.2d 982 · 1980
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 2 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 72 later decisions — most recently March 2017 · most notably Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland (2004), Foster v. Walsh (1988)
31 federal appellate · 2 district · 8 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 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (Class Action Fairness Act of 2005) · 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866)
Relies on Imbler v. Pachtman · Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co. · Davis v. Passman · Barr v. Matteo · Public Broadcasting Service v. Network Project
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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A clerk “may receive immunity in his own right for the performance of a discretionary act or he may be covered by the immunity afforded the judge because he is performing a ministerial function at the direction of the judge. Absolute immunity from damage action applies, only in a narrow range of actions, for clerks of court acting in a non-routine manner under command of court decrees or under explicit instructions of a judge. Damages will not be awarded for a clerk’s actions of this type even if in bad faith or with malice. The rationale is that, in this limited group of functions, the clerk of the court acts as an arm of the judge and comes within his absolute immunity.” [Citations omitted.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Seibel v. Kemble“Absolute immunity from damages actions applies ... for clerks of court acting in a nonroutine manner under command of court decrees or under explicit instructions of a judge”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“No immunity extends to clerks of court acting outside the scope of their jurisdiction, as is true for judges.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Newton v. Buckley
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.