Merritt v. De Los Santos’s Empirical Analysis
721 F.2d 598 · 1983
Citation profile
24 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently June 2009 · most notably Bell v. City of Milwaukee (1984), Whitford v. Boglino (1995)
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))
Relies on Carey v. Piphus · Smith v. Wade · Federal Election Commission v. Machinists Non-Partisan Political League · Lewis v. United States · Redding v. Fairman
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he requirement of impartiality mandates the disqualification of an official who is directly involved in the incident or is otherwise substantially involved in the incident but does not require the disqualification of someone tangentially involved.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Punitive damages are recoverable in a § 1983 suit in an appropriate case. See Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247 , 257 n. 11, 98 S.Ct. 1042 , 1049 n. 11, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978). The standard for determining whether it is appropriate to award punitive damages has been described in various ways. In a recent Supreme Court decision it was decided that punitive damages may be assessed “when the defendant’s conduct is shown to be motivated by evil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous indifference to the federally protected rights of others.” Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30 , 103 S.Ct. 1625 , 75 L.Ed.2d 632 (1983). This court has required a “showing of aggravating circumstances or malicious intent” to justify the award of punitive damages. Endicott v. Huddleston, 644 F.2d 1208 (7th Cir.1980); Konczak v. Tyrrell, 603 F.2d 13 (7th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1016 , 100 S.Ct. 668 , 62 L.Ed.2d 646 (1980). Punitive damages may be awarded for the purpose of deterring or punishing constitutional violations. See Endicott v. Huddleston, 644 F.2d at 1217 ; see also Smith v. Wade, 103 S.Ct. at 1636 . In addition, the Supreme Court recently rejected the argument that “the deterrent purposes of punitive damages are served only if the threshold for punitive damages is higher in every case than the underlying standard for liability in the first instance.” Id., 103 S.Ct. at 1638 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]his case involves a clear violation of the Administrative Regulation and of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Defendant’s attempts to argue otherwise are disingenuous at best.”
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.