Case Citator › Wilson v. Layne

Wilson v. Layne

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
526 U.S. 603
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
97 of 97
Citing cases (total)
2,647
Treatment dates
2000

Status

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. Wilson v. Layne is limited by one Eleventh Circuit decision, listed below. All 97 flagged citations have been read.
More on how this was screened

Hudson v. Hall made an exception to Wilson's suggested qualified-immunity sequence where deciding the constitutional question first would have required an unnecessary state-law ruling. The same Hudson opinion appeared in three source clusters and is recorded once. A later Eleventh Circuit panel's contrary treatment was vacated on rehearing en banc.

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.

2,647 later cases cite Wilson v. Layne; 97 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.

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Treatments

Limited

  • The Eleventh Circuit made an exception to Wilson's suggested qualified-immunity sequence when deciding the constitutional question first would have required resolving an unnecessary state-law issue.

    Hudson v. Hall · Eleventh Circuit · filed

    We recognize that the Supreme Court has written that generally we should—when we adjudicate qualified immunity cases—first decide whether the defendant has violated federal law at all before considering whether the law was clearly established. See Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 1697, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999) ... But we do not think that the Supreme Court's suggested approach is—without exceptions—required absolutely, and we decline to follow that approach in this instance. In this case, whether probable cause existed—and, whether the Fourth Amendment was violated—turns upon a difficult question of state law. If we followed here the approach set out in Wilson and in Lewis, we would be required to determine whether O.C.G.A. § 40-6-123 applies to turns from private driveways onto public roadways before we reached the clearly-established question.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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