Mercado v. Ahmed’s Empirical Analysis
974 F.2d 863 · 1992
Citation profile
30 federal appellate · 3 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions — most recently March 2022 · most notably McNabola v. Chicago Transit Authority (1993), United States v. Hall (1999)
30 federal appellate · 3 district · 10 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 Mansion House Center South Redevelopment Co. v. United States · Kuntz v. City of Dayton · Salem v. United States Lines Company · Gillette Co. v. Miner · Fussell v. Price
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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e have serious doubts about [the] assertion that the studies [relied] upon actually measure how much Americans value life. For example, spending on items like air bags and smoke detectors is probably influenced as much by advertising and marketing decisions made by profit-seeking manufacturers and by governmentmandated safety requirements as it is by any consideration by consumers of how much life is worth. Also, many people may be interested in a whole range of safety devices and believe they are worthwhile, but are unable to afford them. More fundamentally, spending on safety items reflects a consumer's willingness to pay to reduce risk, perhaps more a measure of how cautious a person is than how much he or she values life. Few of us, when confronted with the threat, `Your money or your life!' would, like Jack Benny, pause and respond, `I'm thinking, I'm thinking.' Most of us would empty our wallets. Why that decision reflects less the value we place on life than whether we buy an airbag is not immediately obvious.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"To say that the salary paid to those who hold risky jobs tells us something significant about how much we value life ignores the fact that humans are moved by more than monetary incentives. For example, someone who believes police officers working in an extremely dangerous city are grossly undercompensated for the risks they assume might nevertheless take up the badge out of a sense of civic duty to their hometown. Finally, government calculations about how much to spend (or force others to spend) on health and safety regulations are motivated by a host of considerations other than the value of life: is it an election year? how large is the budget deficit? on which constituents will the burden of the regulations fall? what influence and pressure have lobbyists brought to bear? what is the view of interested constituents? And so on." 974 F.2d at 871 . (Emphasis added). [17]”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“unless there [is] no rational connection between the evidence on damages and the verdict,”
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.