Alexander v. Fulton County
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
372 later cases cite Alexander v. Fulton County; 207 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 Alexander v. Fulton County?
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 en banc Eleventh Circuit overruled Alexander to the extent it treated Georgia sheriffs as county actors when setting jail force policy and training or disciplining deputies regarding force.
Manders v. Lee · Eleventh Circuit (en banc) · filed
In prior § 1983 cases, we merely accepted official capacity suits against Georgia sheriffs as suits against their respective counties. See, e.g., Alexander v. Fulton County, 207 F.3d 1303, 1322 n.14 (11th Cir. 2000); Wayne v. Jarvis, 197 F.3d 1098, 1105 (11th Cir. 1999). In these cases, we did not decide whether, under Georgia law, sheriffs are agents for the State or the counties, and it does not appear the parties raised the question. To the extent that our prior decisions state or imply that Georgia sheriffs act for counties regarding the particular functions in issue–force policy and training and disciplining of deputies in that regard–we overrule those decisions.
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Abrogated
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The en banc Eleventh Circuit displaced Alexander's rejection of a nearly-identical comparator standard and held that comparators must instead be similarly situated in all material respects.
Jacqueline Lewis v. City of Union City · Eleventh Circuit (en banc) · filed
To date, our attempts to answer that question have only sown confusion. In some cases, we have required a proper comparator to be “nearly identical” to the plaintiff. See, e.g., Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall Commc’ns, 738 F.2d 1181, 1185 (11th Cir. 1984) (citations omitted). In others, we have expressly rejected a nearly-identical standard. See, e.g., Alexander v. Fulton Cty., 207 F.3d 1303, … 1333–34 (11th Cir. 2000). In still others, without even mentioning the nearly-identical benchmark, we have deemed it sufficient that the plaintiff and the comparator engaged in the “same or similar” conduct. See, e.g., Holifield v. Reno, 115 F.3d 1555, 1562 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam). And to make matters worse, in still others we have applied both the nearly-identical and same-or-similar standards simultaneously. See, e.g., Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir. 1999). It’s a mess. ... With respect to the standard itself, we hold that the proper test for evaluating comparator evidence is neither plain-old “same or similar” nor “nearly identical,” as our past cases have discordantly suggested. Nor is it the Seventh Circuit’s so-long-as-the-comparison-isn’t-useless test. Rather, we conclude that a plaintiff asserting an intentional-discrimination claim under McDonnell Douglas … must demonstrate that she and her proffered comparators were “similarly situated in all material respects.”
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Declined to follow
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The Eleventh Circuit declined to follow Alexander's comparator standard because the circuit's earlier-panel rule made Maniccia's nearly-identical standard controlling.
Burke-Fowler v. Orange County · Eleventh Circuit · filed
This Circuit’s “nearly identical” misconduct requirement was called into question by a later panel decision which stated: [T]he law does not require that a “similarly situated” individual be one who has “engaged in the same or nearly identical conduct” as the disciplined plaintiff. Instead, the law only requires “similar” misconduct from the similarly situated comparator. Alexander v. Fulton County, Ga., 207 F.3d 1303, 1334 (11th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). However, we are bound to follow Maniccia’s “nearly identical” standard rather than the standard … articulated in Alexander because when a later panel decision contradicts an earlier one, the earlier panel decision controls.
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The panel followed Maniccia's nearly-identical comparator standard rather than Alexander's formulation because the earlier panel controlled.
Eric Archie v. Frank Cockrell Body Shop, Inc. · Eleventh Circuit · filed
Although the “nearly identical” misconduct requirement was called into question by Alexander v. Fulton County, 207 F.3d 1303, 1333-34 (11th Cir. 2000), overruled in part on other grounds by Manders v. Lee, 338 F.3d 1304, 1328 n.52 (11th Cir. 2003) (en banc), we are “bound to follow Maniccia’s ‘nearly identical’ standard rather than the standard articulated in Alexander because when a later panel decision contradicts an earlier one, the earlier panel decision controls.” Burke-Fowler, 447 F.3d at 1323 n.2; see also McCann, 526 F.3d at 1374 n.4.
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