Barrett v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
798 F.2d 565 · 1986
Citation profile
58 federal appellate · 18 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 175 later decisions — most recently March 2022 · most notably Scotto v. Almenas (1998), Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education (1995)
58 federal appellate · 18 district · 6 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. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 2671 · 28 U.S.C. § 2674 · 28 U.S.C. § 2680 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Mitchell v. Forsyth
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 175 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The government defense attorney's] image may not be comparable to that of a prosecutor, but it is not difficult to conceive of situations where, although the government is the defendant, its counsel asserts [matters] tending to upset or excite resentment on the part of the civil plaintiff. ... Although government defense counsel, not having selected the other party as the target of litigation, is in a more passive position than a prosecutor ... he nevertheless functions in an adversarial arena where "there is, if not always a winner, at least one loser," and since he is charged with a public trust he should not be inhibited in the faithful performance of his duties by the threat of harassing lawsuits against him. His function as a government advocate therefore entitles him to absolute immunity, which is "necessary to assure that advocates can perform their respective functions without harassment or intimidation."”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“absolute immunity is of a 'rare and exceptional character.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) whether a historical or common law basis exists for immunity from suit arising out of performance of the function; (2) whether performance of the function poses obvious risks of harassing or vexatious litigation against the official; and (3) whether there exist alternatives to damage suits against the official as a means of redressing wrongful conduct.”
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.