Hobson v. Wilson
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
Circuit later rejected literal heightened pleading for claims against officials alleging unconstitutional motive. The Sixth Circuit chose a different rule for civil juror contacts. Hobson's other holdings, including its fraudulent concealment and damages rules, continue to be applied. Many later opinions attribute the partial overruling to Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit, but that Supreme Court opinion expressly left pleading against individual officials undecided; the D.C. Circuit made the relevant pleading ruling later.
37 later cases cite Hobson v. Wilson; 37 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 Hobson v. Wilson?
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
Overruled in Part
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The D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, rejected the literal heightened pleading rule for unconstitutional motive claims against officials that Hobson had required before discovery.
Crawford-El v. Britton · D.C. Circuit (en banc) · filed
In Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1 (D.C.Cir.1984), ... “nonconclusory allegations of evidence of such intent must be present in a complaint for litigants to proceed to discovery on the claim.” ... Accordingly, we think it was not correct for the district court to apply, literally, a heightened pleading standard, quite apart from the invalidity of our now-abandoned direct evidence rule.
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Declined to Follow
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The Sixth Circuit declined Hobson's presumption of prejudice from improper civil juror contact and required proof of actual prejudice under its own precedent.
Saylor v. A.O. Smith Harvestore Products, Inc. · Sixth Circuit · filed
While Remmer was a criminal case, the doctrine of "presumed prejudice" also has been applied in the civil context. See, e.g., Krause v. Rhodes, 570 F.2d 563, 568 (6th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 924 (1978); Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1 (D.C.Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1084 (1985). Therefore, if Remmer were controlling law, the burden would have been on the Saylors to establish lack of prejudice from the unauthorized contact. However, in United States v. Pennell, 737 F.2d 521 (6th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1158 (1985), this court interpreted a more recent Supreme Court decision, Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209 (1982), as superseding the Remmer rule. ... Because the holding in Pennell applies equally well to pre-verdict and post-verdict hearings for juror prejudice, the defendants in this case bore the burden of proving that the extraneous juror contact resulted in actual prejudice.
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