Grandstaff v. City of Borger’s Empirical Analysis
767 F.2d 161 · 1985
Citation profile
93 federal appellate · 19 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 249 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Piotrowski v. City of Houston (2001), Baker v. Putnal (1996)
93 federal appellate · 19 district · 15 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 McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Baker v. McCollan · Tennessee v. Garner
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 249 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“incompetent and catastrophic performance,”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"[i]f there is a reckless disregard for human life and safety prevalent among the city's police officers which threatens the life and security of those whom they encounter, and if that recklessness is attributable to the instruction or example or acceptance of or by the city policymaker, the policy itself is a repudiation of constitutional rights. Where police officers know at the time they act that their use of deadly force in conscious disregard of the rights and safety of innocent third parties will meet with the approval of city policymakers, the affirmative link/moving force is satisfied."”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“An injured plaintiff is not likely to document proof of a policy or disposition, either of the policymaker or throughout the police force, that disregards human life and safety. The disposition must be inferred circumstantially from conduct of the officers and of the policymaker. Prior incidents of abusive police conduct tend to prove a pattern or custom and the accession to that custom by the poli- eymaker. But the plaintiff may encounter difficulties in making that proof, because of the lack of available credible witnesses and the avenues for dispute and distraction over the actual facts of each specific incident. No incidents pri- or to the August 11, 1981 were proved here.”
4 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.