Barber v. City of Salem’s Empirical Analysis
953 F.2d 232 · 1992
Citation profile
37 federal appellate · 8 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 119 later decisions — most recently February 2024 · most notably Curley v. Village of Suffern (2001), Doe v. Claiborne County Tennessee Claiborne County Board of Education
37 federal appellate · 8 district ·
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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Anderson v. Creighton · Estelle v. Gamble · Bell v. Wolfish · City of Canton v. Harris
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 119 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he proper inquiry concerning the liability of a City and its employees in both their official and individual capacities under section 1983 for a jail detainee’s suicide is: whether the decedent showed a strong likelihood that he would attempt to take his own life in such a manner that failure to take adequate precautions amounted to deliberate indifference to the decedent’s serious medical needs.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In this case, the decedent did express concern over his job, his engagement, and his ability to obtain custody of his young son due to his arrest. However, such a reaction to an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol could not be considered abnormal and would not alert the jail authorities to a strong likelihood that Kenneth Robert Barber would commit suicide. His death is indeed a sad and unfortunate occurrence. However, the failure to take special precautions in this case as to suicide prevention does not amount to a constitutional violation of deliberate indifference to Kenneth Robert Barber’s serious medical needs. Moreover, where no constitutional violation exists for failure to take special precautions, none exists for failure to promulgate policies and to better train personnel to detect and deter jail suicides.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“A government official performing a discretionary function is entitled to qualified immunity in his personal capacity where the official’s action (or failure to act) does not violate constitutional standards in light of clearly established law at the time the official acted. However, the right in question must be more than simply a generalized right. Rather, as this court [has] explained, It must be clearly established in a “particularized” sense, so that “the contours of the right” are clear enough for any reasonable official in the defendant’s position to know that what the official is doing violates that right. This particularity requirement does not mean that the very action in question has been held unlawful; it does mean, though, that in light of the preexisting law, the illegality of the action must be apparent.”
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.