Duckworth v. Franzen’s Empirical Analysis
780 F.2d 645 · 1985
Citation profile
232 federal appellate · 13 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 438 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2020 · most notably Farmer v. Brennan (1994), Wilson v. Seiter (1991)
232 federal appellate · 13 district · 15 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Estelle v. Gamble · Bell v. Wolfish · Kentucky v. Graham
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 438 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“actual knowledge of impending harm easily preventable.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'acts and omissions sufficiently harmful to evidence deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.' " Benson v. Cady, 761 F.2d 335 , 340 (7th Cir.1985) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 , 106). "[T]he infliction of suffering on prisoners can be found to violate the Eighth Amendment only if that infliction is either deliberate, or reckless in the criminal law sense. Gross negligence is not enough. Unlike criminal recklessness it does not import danger so great that knowledge of the danger can be inferred....”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[R]ecklessness in the criminal law sense implies an act so dangerous that the defendant's knowledge of the risk can be inferred.”
8 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.