Smith v. Sushka’s Empirical Analysis
117 F.3d 965 · 1997
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 73 later decisions — most recently December 2022 · most notably McCormick v. Braverman (2006), Duane Jantzen v. Lewis Hawkins Canadian County Board of County Commissioners (1999)
20 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Elrod v. Burns · Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education · Branti v. Finkel · Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois · Goodson v. McDonough Power Equipment, Inc.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 73 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Failure to raise an affirmative defense by responsive pleading does not always result in waiver. The purpose of Rule 8(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is to give the opposing party notice of the affirmative defense and a chance to respond.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[P]olitical affiliation is not limited to membership in a political party and includes commonality of political purpose and support of political candidacy.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[f]ailure to raise an affirmative defense by responsive pleading does not always result in waiver.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.