Wideman v. Shallowford Community Hospital, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
826 F.2d 1030 · 1987
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 2 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 85 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2017 · most notably Joshua Deshaney, a Minor, by His Guardian Ad Litem, and Melody Deshaney,s v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, et al. (1989), Barfield v. Brierton (1989)
20 federal appellate · 2 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 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 · Estelle v. Gamble · Roe v. Wade · Paul v. Davis · Wilson v. Garcia
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 85 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a constitutional duty can arise only when a state or municipality, by exercising a significant degree of custody or control over an individual, places that person in a worse situation than he would have been had the government not acted at all.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[generally speaking, all of these cases can be read for the proposition that, if the state takes a person into custody or otherwise assumes responsibility for that person’s welfare, a “special relationship” may be created in respect of that person, and the fourteenth amendment imposes a concomitant duty on the state to assume some measure of responsibility for the person’s safety and well-being.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“key concept is the exercise of coercion, dominion, or restraint by the state”
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.