Williams v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
692 F.2d 1032 · 1982
Citation profile
42 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 65 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably Jackson v. City of Joliet (1983), Shimman v. International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18 (1984)
42 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 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. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 1915 · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Haines v. Kerner · Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Monroe v. Pape · Baker v. McCollan
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 65 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a court must be careful not to place 'undue emphasis on the modest money damages that were found by the jury' because successful civil rights actions vindicate a public interest.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[It] is significant that the district court rendered judgment for [the plaintiff] based upon his successful state pendent tort action. In Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122 , [132 n. 15] 100 S.Ct. 2570 , 2576 n. 15, 65 L.Ed.2d 653 (1980), the Supreme Court intimated that a party prevailing on a substantial claim that is pendent to a civil rights claim is entitled to a recovery of attorney’s fees when the civil rights claim and the pendent claim arise out of a common nucleus of operative facts.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“These cases demonstrate that the federal courts are aware of the fact that often a court will affirm a judgment on a pendent, noncivil rights claim when to do so will allow it to avoid an unnecessary decision on a difficult constitutional issue. For example, in this case, this Court has refused to decide whether the good faith defense was improperly rejected by the district court since Williams would recover compensatory damages under the pendent claim, regardless of this Court’s decision on the good faith issue. Moreover, by allowing a recovery of attorneys’ fees “the congressional goal of encouraging suits to vindicate constitutional rights [is furthered] without undermining the well-settled judicial policy of avoiding unnecessary decisions [on] important constitutional issues.” Maher, 100 S.Ct. at 2577 .”
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.