Polson v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
895 F.2d 705 · 1990
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 48 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 91 later decisions — most recently December 2023 · most notably Stevenson v. Superior Court (1997), Conner v. Schnuck Markets, Inc. (1997)
23 federal appellate · 48 district · 7 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. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 703 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Preiser v. Rodriguez · Brown v. General Services Administration · Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. · 6 Kan. App. 2d 488 - Murphy v. City of Topeka
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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Plaintiff alleges, as a common law tort, that defendant City was negligent in supervising her immediate superior, defendant Davis, thereby allowing him to violate her civil rights. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants on this claim based on its conclusion that this cause of action does not exist in Polson [v. Davis], 635 F.Supp. [1130] at 1151 [ (D.Kan.1986) ]. Plaintiff has cited no eases, in Kansas or elsewhere, recognizing such a cause of action. She merely argues on logic that because the city has a duty not to discriminate, it also has a duty to properly supervise its agents. We note that the Nebraska Supreme Court, when faced with the choice, declined to recognize negligent supervision as a common law tort. See Alford v. Life Savers, Inc., 210 Neb. 441 , 315 N.W.2d 260 (1982). We also observe that this cause of action, once recognized, would necessarily arise any time a middle level supervisor engaged in discriminatory conduct. We think it unlikely that the Kansas courts would adopt a liability rule with such broad implications. This inventive cause of action appears to be nothing more than an attempt to circumvent the strictures of the employment-at-will doctrine by implying a duty that exposes higher level supervisors to liability for actions for which her immediate supervisors are not hable. We affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment on this issue.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]here is no evidence that the remedies provided for in KAAD (Kansas Acts Against Discrimination) are constitutionally inadequate to compensate plaintiff, or so inadequate to enforce the stated public policy as to require bolstering by a common law cause of action.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'Damages recoverable for defamation may no longer be presumed; they must be established by proof, no matter what the character of the libel. '”
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.