Burgess v. Ryan’s Empirical Analysis
996 F.2d 180 · 1993
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2019
6 federal appellate · 1 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1367 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Mathews v. Eldridge · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman · Joshua Deshaney, a Minor, by His Guardian Ad Litem, and Melody Deshaney,s v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, et al. · Nordlinger v. Hahn · MacKey v. Montrym
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Behind many of Burgess’s arguments lies a conclusion that employees of Illinois misunderstand Illinois law * * * * Yet it is not appropriate for a federal court, hearing a case under § 1983, to upbraid state officials for a supposed error of state law. Burgess was free to take his contentions to state court * * * * A federal judge, by contrast, must assume that the state officials’ interpretation is right — not necessarily because it is correct * * * but because errors in the interpretation of state law do not supply a basis for federal relief. Constitutional adjudication tests the power of a state to act in a particular way; whether the state indeed wishes to act in that way is a question of its domestic law. The Constitution does not require states to administer their laws correctly.”
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.