Upton v. Thompson’s Empirical Analysis
930 F.2d 1209 · 1991
Citation profile
91 federal appellate · 1 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 135 later decisions — most recently April 2022 · most notably Donovan v. City of Milwaukee (1994), Elliott v. Thomas (1991)
91 federal appellate · 1 district · 2 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 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Malley v. Briggs · Elrod v. Burns
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 135 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“To prove the presence of a clearly established constitutional right, the plaintiff must point to 'closely analogous cases' decided prior to the defendants' challenged actions.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[B]etween the strictly menial government worker (who, under Elrod and Branti, is clearly and completely protected form patronage firing) and the policymaker/confidential assistant (whose protection from patronage firing is non-existent), there is a range of government positions for which the propriety of patronage firing has depended largely on the courts' juggling of competing constitutional and political values.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“deputy sheriffs operate with a sufficient level of autonomy and discretionary authority to justify a sheriff's use of political considerations when determining who will serve as deputies,”
4 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.