Withers v. Levine’s Empirical Analysis
615 F.2d 158 · 1980
Citation profile
90 federal appellate · 10 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 175 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2009 · most notably Farmer v. Brennan (1994), Ramos v. Lamm (1980)
90 federal appellate · 10 district · 10 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 Estelle v. Gamble · Baker v. McCollan · Wood v. Strickland · Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · Weinstein v. Bradford
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 175 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... [N]egligence by a state official under some circumstances may itself violate a constitutionally protected right; when it does, it is actionable under § 1983. McCray v. Maryland, 456 F.2d 1, 5 (4th Cir.1972). When there is present in a prison or in an identifiable portion of it, a pervasive risk of harm to all prisoners, or to an identifiable group of them, the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment requires that prison officials exercise reasonable care to provide reasonable protection from such unreasonable risk of harm. Given the pervasive and unreasonable risk of harm, negligence by prison officials in their performance of their duty of care is a violation of the constitutional right and actionable under § 1983. The constitutional rights would often remain unredressed if a higher standard of care were required.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[The plaintiff] is still in Maryland’s prison system, and, since he had been previously considered appropriate for minimum custody housing, he again may be transferred to [the prison where he originally was incarcerated].”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]rial judge may impose reasonable limits on the extent of cross-examination ....”
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.