Walton v. City of Southfield’s Empirical Analysis
995 F.2d 1331 · 1993
Citation profile
103 federal appellate · 6 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 215 later decisions — most recently June 2021 · most notably City of Lancaster v. Chambers (1994), Darrah v. City of Oak Park (2001)
103 federal appellate · 6 district · 3 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. § 129 · 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Estelle v. Gamble · Graham v. Connor
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 215 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful; but it is to say that in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]n the ordinary instance, to find a clearly established constitutional right, a district court must find binding precedent by the Supreme Court, its court of appeals or itself. In an extraordinary case, it may be possible for the decisions of other courts to clearly establish a principle of law. For the decisions of other courts to provide such “clearly established law,” these decisions must both point unmistakably to the unconstitutionality of the conduct complained of and be so clearly foreshadowed by applicable direct authority as to leave no doubt in the mind of a reasonable officer that his conduct, if challenged on constitutional grounds, would be found wanting.”
8 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.