Walsh v. Mellas’s Empirical Analysis
837 F.2d 789 · 1988
Citation profile
81 federal appellate · 6 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 135 later decisions — most recently October 2023 · most notably Archie v. City of Racine (1988), Rakovich v. Wade (1988)
81 federal appellate · 6 district ·
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 · Anderson v. City of Bessemer City · Estelle v. Gamble · Bell v. Wolfish
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 135 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"We firmly believe that the failure of prison authorities to even review an inmate's file to determine his or her proclivity for violence and/or whether they are a gang-target in the face of gang-related threats and violence manifest utter disregard for the value of human life. This we will not condone, for in America we respect the sanctity of human life, including those confined in penal institutions. The increased administrative burden that the defendants assert a decision in Walsh’s favor would impose upon the prison system is inconsequential when compared with the value of a proper screening process protecting human life and curbing gang-related violence. Defendants concede that some on-the-spot screening of an inmate’s size and experience with other inmates is currently performed with respect to the more permanent housing of double-celled inmates. The added burden of reviewing the inmate’s file is not substantial. We agree with the district court that pursuant to Duckworth [v. Franzen, 780 F.2d 645 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 816 , 107 S.Ct. 71 , 93 L.Ed.2d 28 (1986) ], the fact that ‘the plaintiff was, and was known to be ... a targeted inmate and therefore a member of an identifiable group of prisoners for whom risk of assault was a serious problem; and that the two defendants, Mellas and Martin, devised and operated a security system which ignored that risk in that targeted inmates in investigative status were housed with other prisoners without any determ”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"To protect public officials from the “broad ranging discovery’ that can be particularly disruptive of effective government. For this reason, we have emphasized that qualified immunity questions should be resolved at the earliest possible stage of a litigation.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a member of an identifiable group of prisoners for whom risk of assault was a serious problem.”
2 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.