Foy v. Holston’s Empirical Analysis
94 F.3d 1528 · 1996
Citation profile
47 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 117 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Alexander v. Fulton County (2000), Rioux v. City of Atlanta (2008)
47 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 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
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
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 117 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“One trigger to the doctrine’s application depends upon whether the record establishes that the defendant, in fact, did possess a substantial lawful motive for acting as he did act. At least when an adequate lawful motive is present, that a discriminatory motive might also exist does not sweep qualified immunity from the field even at the summary judgment stage____ Where the facts assumed for summary judgment purposes in a case involving qualified immunity show mixed motives (lawful and unlawful motivations) and preexisting law does not dictate that the merits of the case must be decided in plaintiffs favor, the defendant is entitled to immunity- ... [T]he record does show Defendants had, in fact, cause to understand that [a child] was possibly being mistreated. The record also shows Defendants were, in fact, aware of information that would warrant investigation of other children____ ____Because, given the circumstances and the state of the law, a reasonable child custody worker could have considered Defendants’ conduct arguably proper even if Defendants were motivated in substantial part by unlawful motives, Defendants’ conduct was objectively reasonable for the purposes of qualified immunity.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Once the qualified immunity defense is raised, plaintiffs bear the burden of showing that the federal rights allegedly violated were clearly established ... This burden is not easily discharged: “that qualified immunity protects government actors is the usual rule; only in exceptional cases will government actors have no shield against claims made against them in their individual capacities.” Plaintiffs cannot carry their burden of proving the law to be clearly established by stating constitutional rights in general terms.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“whenever discriminatory intent appears in the summary judgment record even if discriminatory intent is an element of the underlying constitutional tort”
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.