Green v. McKaskle’s Empirical Analysis
788 F.2d 1116 · 1986
Citation profile
79 federal appellate · 3 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 183 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably Jacquez v. Procunier (1986), Jackson v. Cain (1989)
79 federal appellate · 3 district · 18 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. § 1915 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Estelle v. Gamble · Haines v. Kerner · Daniels v. Williams · Carey v. Piphus
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 183 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Watson, 525 F.2d at 890. As we explained in Green v. McKaskle: 11 Unlike most litigants, prisoners have everything to gain and nothing to lose by filing frivolous suits. Filing a suit in forma pauperis costs a prisoner little or nothing; time is usually of little importance to a prisoner and prisoners are not often deterred by the threat of possible sanctions for malicious or frivolous actions or perjury. Moreover, a prisoner, while he may be unsuccessful, can at least look forward to”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Ali v. Higgs · Johnson v. Lynaugh“[R]emedial decrees are the means by which unconstitutional conditions are corrected but they do not create or enlarge constitutional rights”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“dismiss the case if the allegation of poverty is untrue, or if satisfied that the action is frivolous or malicious.”
3 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.