Crowley v. Prince George's County’s Empirical Analysis
890 F.2d 683 · 1989
Citation profile
27 federal appellate · 7 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Randle v. City of Aurora (1995), Wimmer v. Suffolk County Police Department (1999)
27 federal appellate · 7 district · 4 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. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 701 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 703 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 704 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati · City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik · Jett v. Dallas Independent School District · United States v. Utah Construction & Mining Co. · University of Tennessee v. Elliott
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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he County Sheriff may have discretion to hire and fire employees without also being the county official responsible for establishing county employment policy. ... Instead, if county employment policy was set by the Board of County Commissioners, only that body's decisions would provide a basis for county liability. This would be true even if the Board left the Sheriff discretion to hire and fire employees and the Sheriff exercised that discretion in an unconstitutional manner; the decision to act unlawfully would not be a decision of the Board. However, if the Board delegated its power to establish final employment policy to the Sheriff, the Sheriff's decisions would represent county policy and could give rise to municipal liability.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]t is the municipality's policies, not 'the subordinate's departures from them,' that must underlie [municipal] liability in such instances.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It may be that the downgrading of [plaintiffs] position by the chief of police was wrongful or even spiteful. We have emphasized, however, that Title VII “is not a general ‘bad acts’ statute.” Rather, the conduct it prohibits is specifically set forth.... While Congress may decide to extend the statute’s coverage to persons who bring any discriminatory practice of an employer to light, such a step lies beyond the province of the courts. To find in Title VII protection for whistle-blowers on each and every instance of discrimination on the part of an employer is more than we think the plain language of its provisions will support.”
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.