Sefick v. Gardner’s Empirical Analysis
164 F.3d 370 · 1998
Citation profile
13 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably Huminski v. Corsones (2004), DiLoreto v. Downey Unified School District Board of Education (1999)
13 federal appellate · 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 City of Los Angeles v. Lyons · Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n · Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. · United States v. Grace · United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Assn., 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The lobby of the [federal] courthouse is not a traditional public forum or a designated public forum, not a place open to the public for the presentation of views. No one can hold a political rally in the lobby of a federal courthouse. It is a nonpublic forum....”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Nothing in the first amendment prevents the government from allowing sedate and decorous exhibits — the lobby of the Dirksen Courthouse contains the Great Seal of the United States, copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, a memorial to a deputy marshal killed in the line of duty, and a bust of Senator Dirksen — while excluding the comic, the caustic, and the acerbic.... A preference for the somber over the sardonic within a courthouse is not viewpoint or even subject matter discrimination. It is a standard time, place, and manner limitation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[The] current no-display policy, adopted after the commencement of this suit, is not implemented by statute or regulation and could be changed again, so . . . voluntary cessation of the challenged conduct does not eliminate the controversy.”
1 later decision 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.