App 02 · Sourced case register

QI Case Atlas

Twenty-five entries: twenty-two published decisions with court, year, disposition and document provenance, and three editorial conclusions kept visually apart so no reader can mistake an argument for a holding. Every filter on this page works.

Vertical slice Portfolio specified

Triple Lens on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · how this works

How to read this table

Holdings are stated in one short, general sentence each. This atlas does not restate case facts, does not characterise parties, and does not summarise reasoning beyond the disposition — if you need more, the citation is in the first column and the opinion is public. Rows drawn from published decisions are labelled RECORD. Rows that carry the author’s analysis are labelled EDITORIAL CONCLUSION, shaded oxblood, and marked “Author analysis — no court” in the court column. Coverage here is doctrinal Supreme Court authority; circuit-level and state-level layers are specified but not built in this prototype.

Record-state legend & filter — press a label to include or exclude it

The atlas holds no testimony or allegation rows: an interview or a pleading belongs in The Fourth Record or the VERIFY timeline, not in a table of decisions. Those two filters stay in the legend anyway, with a count of zero, because the vocabulary is the same in every room and hiding an empty category would be its own small dishonesty.

Qualified immunity decisions and editorial conclusions, with provenance
Case / citation Jurisdiction Court Year Disposition & holding Record state Provenance

The table scrolls sideways on narrow screens rather than crushing seven columns into a phone. Provenance opens a drawer below.

Pathways

Three routes through the same twenty entries.

The atlas is a table because tables can be checked. But a doctrine is a sequence, and these are the three sequences the documentary actually follows. Each one is a set of filters you can reproduce with the controls above.

Record

The standard, assembled

Harlow (1982) → Anderson (1987) → al-Kidd (2011). Read in order, these three show the test being stated, then sharpened into a requirement about how specifically the earlier case must match.

Filter: disposition · Standard restated + Immunity granted
Record

The procedure, loosened

Mitchell (1985) → Saucier (2001) → Pearson (2009) → Tolan (2014). An immunity from suit becomes immediately appealable, a sequence is prescribed, the sequence becomes optional, and the Court reminds lower courts what summary judgment requires.

Filter: disposition · Procedure prescribed / relaxed
Record

Where plaintiffs still win

Malley (1986) → Hope (2002) → Groh (2004) → Taylor (2020). Four decisions where immunity was narrowed or denied. This is the shortest pathway in the atlas, and the project says so rather than padding it.

Filter: disposition · Immunity denied + narrowed

What this atlas will not do

It will not score courts or judges, rank jurisdictions, predict outcomes, or present a count of cases as a measurement of anything. Seventeen decisions are seventeen decisions; they are not a sample, and the project does not treat them as one. Any claim about frequency or trend requires a dataset with published coding rules, and no such dataset is included in this build.

What would be added next

Circuit-level decisions with the same seven columns; state-court analogues where a state has its own immunity statute; and a per-row link to the corresponding item in The Fourth Record so a reader can see the retrieval date and the reviewer who checked the citation. All specified, none built. Every addition would arrive as a dated entry in the UPDATE door.

Primary sources

The statute, and what is pending.

Links checked 5 September 2026. Every one goes to an official government source or to a full opinion text — not to a summary, a news article, or an explainer. If a link ever dies, the citation beside it is enough to find the document again.

The statute the whole doctrine sits on

42 U.S.C. § 1983 — Civil action for deprivation of rights. Enacted as § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Note what it does and does not say: the section creates liability and does not mention qualified immunity anywhere. The defence is judge-made, which is the single most important fact about it.

Official U.S. Code: uscode.house.gov · Section text at Cornell LII: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983

“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured…”

Bills before the 119th Congress — pending, in both directions

These are introduced bills, not law. Each was referred to committee and has not advanced. Two would abolish the defence; one would write it into statute. Showing only one side would be a distortion, so all three are here.

Congressional Research Service background, LSB10492: congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10492

Most recent decision on the register

Zorn v. Linton, No. 25–297, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), decided 23 March 2026, per curiam. A summary reversal of the Second Circuit holding the officer entitled to qualified immunity. Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. It is cited as 607 U.S. ___ rather than with a page number because the bound reporter page has not been assigned yet — inventing one would be a fabricated citation.

Official slip opinion: supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-297_bqm2.pdf · Docket: docket 25-297 · Decision below reported as Linton v. Zorn, 135 F.4th 19 (2d Cir. 2025).