Doe ex rel. Doe v. Austin’s Empirical Analysis
848 F.2d 1386 · 1988
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2015
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 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 Morrissey v. Brewer · Goldberg v. Kelly · City of Cleburne Texas v. Cleburne Living Center · Addington v. Texas · Vitek v. Jones
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he notion that the continuing confinement of the class members is voluntary notwithstanding the possible involuntariness of their initial confinement is, at best, an illusion. Indeed, the practice of relying upon some affirmative act on the part of profoundly and severely retarded persons to signal their will to escape confinement, coupled with the presence of a parent or guardian who may have played a pivotal role in institutionalizing the admittee in the first instance, creates a quite palpable danger that the adult child will be lost in the shuffle. We decline to adopt a measure of voluntariness for the commitment of adults that favors form over substance. Therefore, we agree with the district court that the commitment of mentally retarded adults by the Commonwealth upon application by a parent or guardian is to be considered involuntary.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Court in Parham was concerned with the commitment of minor children, and its conclusions flow more or less naturally from the unique and traditional relationship shared between parent and child.... “Once someone becomes an adult, one’s parents lose that degree of authority found so crucial in Parham." ... Moreover, the interest of the parents in avoiding “significant intrusion into the parent-child relationship,” as noted in Parham , ... is simply not as great in the case of an adult.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Heichelbech v. Evans“the mere identification of differences is not enough; equal protection 'require[s] that a distinction made have some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Doe v. Cowherd
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.