O'Keefe v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently January 2011 · most notably 26 Pa. Commw. 600 - Nyzio v. Lee Tire & Rubber Co. (1976), Century Apartments, Inc. v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review (1977)
33 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Kentucky Fried Chicken of Altoona, Inc. v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review · Stalc v. Commonwealth · Loder v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review · Horace W. Longacre, Inc. v. Commonwealth
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]his definition indicates that before the actions of an employe can constitute willful misconduct, the employe must display a serious disregard of his responsibilities to his employer, in a manner that is in some real sense detrimental to his employer’s interests.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“An employe shall be ineligible for compensation for any week— (e) In which his unemployment is due to his discharge or temporary suspension from work for willful misconduct connected with his work. . . .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“O'Keefe made no attempt to conceal his actions, since both he, the other employees, and their immediate supervisor believed that the stale pastries were valueless waste material. [[Image here]] [WJhile we do not condone theft by an employee, we simply cannot agree with the Board that this case shows any improper motive on the part of O'Keefe. In the peculiar cireumstances of this case, we can find no indication of any wrongful conduct on O'Keefe's part. Indeed, it is difficult for us to see how O'Keefe can be said to have disregarded a "standard of behavior" when the record shows, without contradiction, that none of the other employees, or the immediate representative of management, had the slightest idea that anything was wrong with eating a piece of stale, apparently unsalable, pastry. We note that O'Keefe ... "admitted" that he knew eating the pastries was wrong.... [He] offer[ed] to make restitution in the amount of $50 (to cover all of the pastries consumed by O'Keefe over a period of several months), and, in fact, O'Keefe did pay [the employer] $50. From this, the Board found that O'Keefe had been "stealing baked goods" from his employer. The entire balance of the ree-ord leaves us with no doubt that O'Keefe was not "stealing" as we understand the meaning of that term, and the statement containing the "admission" (which is the only evidence indicating O'Keefe knew his actions were disapproved of by his employer) does not constitute the substantial evidence necessary to ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.