Dunn v. Denk’s Empirical Analysis
79 F.3d 401 · 1996
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently September 2022 · most notably Flores v. City of Palacios (2004), Gutierrez v. City of San Antonio (1998)
20 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 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 Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Graham v. Connor · Mitchell v. Forsyth · 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Given the explicit language of Johnson, and its footnote 1 in particular, we conclude that the law at the time of this arrest was uncertain regarding whether “a significant injury will be caused by unnecessary .force without significant physical injury.” On the present facts, Denk was entitled to qualified immunity from the claims asserted in this case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Petta v. Rivera“Qualified immunity is concerned only with the reasonableness of an officer’s actions. Once an officer uses objectively unreasonable force to effect an arrest, he loses his qualified immunity, whether the other elements of an excessive force claim are clearly established or not.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Petta v. Rivera“even assuming arguendo that nonphysical injury can be 'significant' under Johnson, the question remains whether this rule was 'clearly established' at the time of the incident in issue, so as to place Officer Denk outside the protection of qualified immunity.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.