Thomas v. Sams’s Empirical Analysis
734 F.2d 185 · 1984
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 81 later decisions — most recently January 2024 · most notably Elliott v. Perez (1985), Zaher Zahrey v. Martin E. Coffey (2000)
40 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Pierson v. Ray · 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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person should have known.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to break the causal chain and to insulate him as the initiating party. [Defendant] acted with”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Liability must rest on official policy, meaning the city government’s policy, and not on the policy of an individual official. The policy is that of the city, however, where it is made by an official under authority to do so given by the governing authority ... City policymakers not only govern conduct; they decide the goals for a particular city function and devise the means of achieving those goals. Policymakers act in the place of the governing body in the area of their responsibility; they are not supervised except as to the totality of their performance.”
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.