McKenna v. Edgell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Ijnconsistently, we have at times asked the jury and at times reserved for the court the issue of whether a set of facts provided officers with probable cause. Compare Parsons v. City of Pontiac, 533 F.3d 492, 503 (6th Cir. 2008) (“We ultimately conclude that th[e] evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to [the plaintiff], is not susceptible to only one reasonable determination—that the detectives had probable cause to arrest [him].”), and Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls, 496 F.3d 609, 617 (6th Cir. 2007) (‘‘[T]he jury heard testimony sufficient to support its conclusion that the officers arrested [the plaintiff] with probable cause,”), and Gardenhire v. Schubert, 205 F.3d 303, 315 (6th Cir. 2000) ("[W]e must determine whether a jury could conclude that a reasonable officer could have believed that the couple had probably committed or were committing a crime. There is substantial evidence supporting each party’s position.”), with Hale v. Kart, 396 F.3d 721, 728 (6th Cir. 2005) ( “[T]he jury does not decide whether the facts it has found are legally sufficient to amount to probable cause or entitlement to qualified immunity.”), and Ross v. Duggan, 402 F.3d 575, 585 (6th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he judgment [] ... that pre-arrest probable cause existed on a given set of facts ... is a mixed issue of law and fact reviewed by the courts de novo.").”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. John Harmon v. Hamilton Cnty.

2. “We conclude that whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity depends on whether they acted in a law-enforcement capacity or in an emergency-medical-response capacity when engaging in the conduct that McKenna claimed violated the Fourth Amendment. If the officers acted as medical-emergency responders, then McKenna’s claim would amount to a complaint that he received dangerously negligent and invasive medical care. Under a function-dependent view of Peete , if any right to be free from such unintentional conduct by medical-emergency responders exists under the Fourth Amendment, it is not clearly established. Peete, 486 F.3d at 219 . If the defendants acted in a law-enforcement (e.g., investigative or prosecutorial) capacity, however, McKenna’s claim does not “look[ ] like a medical malpractice claim,” id. at 222 ; rather, his claim is that he was subject to an unreasonable seizure and search. It is certainly clearly established that police violate the Fourth Amendment when they handcuff people whom they neither suspect of criminal wrongdoing nor believe to be a danger to themselves or others.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brown v. Jenne

3. “[W]here the legal question of qualified immunity turns upon which version of the facts one accepts, the jury, not the judge, must determine liability.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jackson v. City Of Cleveland