Smith v. Heath’s Empirical Analysis
691 F.2d 220 · 1982
Citation profile
24 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 56 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably Canderm Pharmacal, Ltd. v. Elder Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1988), Parrish v. Johnson (1986)
24 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · United States v. Mendenhall
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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“.. the § 1983 liability of supervisory personnel must be based on more than the right to control employees. Section 1983 liability will not be imposed solely upon the basis of respondeat superior. There must be a showing that the supervisor encouraged the specific incident of misconduct or in some other way directly participated in it. At a minimum, a § 1983 plaintiff must show that a supervisory official at least implicitly authorized, approved or knowingly acquiesced in the unconstitutional conduct of the offending subordinate.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“'The determination of the amount of damages to be awarded is left to the discretion and good judgment of the fact finder as guided by the facts of the particular case.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“knew their actions to be improper; that they were not performing routine or normal police procedure; that they had “ulterior” motives in undertaking a war-rantless, unconstitutional search and that no probable cause existed for their conduct.”
2 later decisions 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.