Harper v. Merckle’s Empirical Analysis
638 F.2d 848 · 1981
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 4 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 86 later decisions — most recently June 2023 · most notably Ashelman v. Pope (1986), Barker v. Norman (1981)
40 federal appellate · 4 district · 7 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. § 1343 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Imbler v. Pachtman · Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · Pierson v. Ray · Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation · Butz v. Economou
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 86 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the precise act complained of ... is a normal judicial function; (2) the events involved occurred in the judge’s chambers; (3) the controversy centered around a case then pending before the judge; and (4) the confrontation arose directly and immediately out of a visit to the judge in his official capacity.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Scott v. Hayes · Emory v. Peeler“[W]e caution that our holding is exceedingly narrow and tailored to his, the rarest of factual settings. Succinctly stated, we hold only that when it is beyond reasonable dispute that a judge has acted out of personal motivation and has used his judicial office as an offensive weapon to vindicate personal objectives, and it further appears certain that no party has invoked the judicial machinery for any purpose at all, then the judge’s actions do not amount to "judicial acts.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“exceedingly narrow and ... rarest of factual settings.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.