Hill v. Shelander’s Empirical Analysis
924 F.2d 1370 · 1991
Citation profile
43 federal appellate · 5 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 120 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably Atchinson v. District of Columbia (1996), United States v. Davis (2001)
43 federal appellate · 5 district · 9 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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Kentucky v. Graham · City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle · Hutto v. Finney · Schiavone v. Fortune
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 120 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“an amendment in a defendant's capacity in a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alters the elements of recovery and defense . . . [and] require[s] major changes in pleading, discovery, trial preparation and selection and location of witnesses to testify at trial.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“the unconstitutional conduct alleged involve[d] [the defendant's] individual actions and nowhere allude[d] to an official policy or custom.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A]n official capacity suit will be presumed when the indicia of an official policy or custom are present in the complaint.”
3 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.