Plyler v. Evatt’s Empirical Analysis
846 F.2d 208 · 1988
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2005 · most notably Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail (1992), Plyler v. Evatt (1990)
17 federal appellate · 2 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 Anderson v. City of Bessemer City · Bell v. Wolfish · Pullman-Standard v. Swint · Procunier v. Martinez · Rhodes v. Chapman
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'[T]he unique nature and demands of institutional reform litigation necessitate a more flexible approach to modification' than may be appropriate with respect to consent decrees between private parties.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Heath v. De Courcy · Small v. Hunt“A major concern in considering motions to modify injunctive decrees, whether consensual or court-imposed, is that the procedure not be used to re-examine the basis of the original decree rather than the equity of the modification. Care must be taken not to “impeach” the injunction “in its application to the conditions that existed at its making” while ostensibly considering whether to modify it because the conditions have changed; courts may not properly “reverse under the guise of readjusting.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The 'uniqueness' of [such] litigation lies in the fact that it is necessarily aimed at achieving 'broad public policy objectives in a complex, ongoing fact situation,' with the consequence that consent decrees settling such litigation must be viewed as embodying 'not so much peremptory commands to be obeyed [but] as ... future-oriented plans designed to achieve [those] objectives.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Small v. Hunt
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.