Colaizzi v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis
812 F.2d 304 · 1987
Citation profile
84 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 152 later decisions — most recently September 2023 · most notably Rakovich v. Wade (1988), Doe v. Taylor Independent School District (1994)
84 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 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. § 1292 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Paul v. Davis · Abney v. United States
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 152 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'The right must be sufficiently particularized to put potential defendants on notice that their conduct probably is unlawful.' ... Our conclusion is that the test for immunity should be whether the law was clear in relation to the specific facts confronting the public official when he acted.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[The Harlow qualified immunity] test would have little bite if a right “clearly established” at any level of generality could survive it. “The words ‘clearly established ... constitutional rights’ may not be used to read the defense of immunity out of federal tort law by the facile expedient of stating constitutional rights in the most general possible terms, so that anyone who prevails on- the merits of a claim based on (for example) the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause, however novel that claim is, can defeat the defense of immunity simply by pointing out that the right to the free exercise of one’s religion has long been a clearly established constitutional right. The right must be sufficiently particularized to put potential defendants on notice that their conduct probably is unlawful.” Our conclusion is that the test for immunity should be whether the law was clear in relation to the specific facts confronting the public official when he acted.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“at the heart of every claim that an employer has infringed an employee’s liberty of occupation, is a charge that the “circumstances of that discharge, at least if they were publically stated, had the effect of blacklisting the employee from employment in comparable jobs.” In such cases, the employee’s good name, reputation, honor or integrity must be called into question in a manner that makes it virtually impossible for the employee to find new employment in his chosen field.”
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.