Lewis v. Woods’s Empirical Analysis
848 F.2d 649 · 1988
Citation profile
19 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently August 2016 · most notably Schultea v. Wood (1995), Hessel v. O'Hearn (1992)
19 federal appellate ·
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. § 1915 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Parratt v. Taylor · Daniels v. Williams · Paul v. Davis · Hudson v. Palmer
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“not diminish the significance of a finding of a constitutional violation.... [T]he Supreme Court [has] held that [a constitutional violation] is actionable for nominal damages even without proof of actual injury. Moreover, ... “[a] violation of constitutional rights is never de minim-is,” in the sense that a constitutional violation is never “so small or trifling that the law takes no account of it.” That holding is no less valid today. Rather, we hold that when the sole object of a suit is to recover money damages, the recovery of [no money] is no victory under Section 1988. This was no struggle over constitutional principles. It was a damage suit and surely so since plaintiffs sought nothing more.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] violation of constitutional rights is never de minimis,”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Subsequently, in Green v. McKaskle, [ 770 F.2d 445 ] [(5th Cir.1985)] a panel of the court called into question the wisdom of allowing Ruiz [v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265 (S.D.Tex.1980)] class members to maintain separate lawsuits and of referring all of these hundreds of cases to a single district court in Texas. The circuit vot ed to rehear Green en banc, presumably to confront and resolve the Green panel's criticism of the Johnson decision, but certain circumstances made en banc review impracticable — Green’s parole had mooted the question whether he might maintain a separate lawsuit, and the Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit had vacated the part of the Johnson opinion requiring that all cases implicating the Ruiz court's decree be transferred to the Ruiz court.”
1 later decision 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.