Case Citator › Haines v. Kerner

Haines v. Kerner

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
404 U.S. 519
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
622 of 622
Citing cases (total)
26,103
Treatment dates
1993–2024
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Haines v. Kerner has two confirmed limitations after all 622 flagged citations were read. McNeil v. United States confined Haines's effect on ordinary procedural requirements, and Spence v. Department of Veterans Affairs declined to extend categorical solicitude to self-represented lawyers.
More on how this was screened

California chose its own pleading rule for a self-represented litigant, as described above; that state-law choice does not alter Haines's federal rule.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

26,103 later cases cite Haines v. Kerner; 622 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Haines v. Kerner?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Supreme Court confined Haines's solicitude for pleadings prepared by uncounseled prisoners, holding that it does not excuse procedural mistakes in ordinary civil litigation.

    McNeil v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    While we have insisted that the pleadings prepared by prisoners who do not have access to counsel be liberally construed, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U. S. 519 (1972); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 106 (1976), and have held that some procedural rules must give way because of the unique circumstance of incarceration, see Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266 (1988) (pro se prisoner’s notice of appeal deemed filed at time of delivery to prison authorities), we have never suggested that procedural rules in ordinary civil litigation should be interpreted so as to excuse mistakes by those who proceed without counsel.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The D.C. Circuit declined to extend Haines's liberal pleading standard categorically to self-represented licensed attorneys.

    Spence v. Department of Veterans Affairs · D.C. Circuit · filed

    We now hold that the liberal pleading standard for pro se litigants does not invariably apply when the litigant is a licensed attorney. ... As the Supreme Court has recognized, pro se pleadings are different from “formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Haines, 404 U.S. at 520 (emphasis added). The requirement that courts construe pro se pleadings liberally does not ordinarily apply to pro se lawyers.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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