Price v. Sasser’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 1 district ·

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

1. “On summary judgment, the judge appropriately may determine, not only the currently applicable law, but whether that law was clearly established at the time an action occurred. If the law at that time was not clearly established, an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly be said to ‘know that the law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful_ If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 915 F. Supp. 776 - David v. Mosley

2. “that the official acted or failed to act despite his knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm____ Furthermore, a prison official cannot “escape liability for deliberate indifference by showing that, while he was aware of an obvious, substantial risk to inmate safety, he did not know that the complainant was especially likely to be assaulted by the specific prisoner who eventually committed the assault.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wilson v. Wright

3. “an Eighth Amendment claimant need not show that a prison official acted or failed to act believing that harm actually would befall an inmate; it is enough that the official acted or failed to act despite his knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Street v. Corrections Corp. of America