Smith v. Mattox

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that qualified immunity protects a defendant from claims of excessive force if “case law, in factual terms, has not staked out a bright line[.]”
• declaring that conduct \barely\ qualified for narrow exception where police officer broke the arm of an allegedly docile arrestee who had admittedly previously been fleeing
• declaring that conduct “barely” qualified for narrow exception where police officer broke the arm of an allegedly docile arrestee who had admittedly previously been fleeing
• establishing that if an arrestee demonstrates compliance, but the officer nonetheless inflicts substantial injury using ordinary tactics, then the officer may have used excessive force
• declaring that conduct “barely” qualified for narrow exception where police officer broke the arm of an allegedly docile arrestee who had admittedly previously been fleeing
• explaining that if the court must assume that the plaintiff was offering no resistance, the amount of force used was “obviously unnecessary to restrain even a previously fractious arrestee”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).