Millbrook v. IBP, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
280 F.3d 1169 · 2002
Citation profile
67 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 148 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Manning v. Chevron Chemical Co., LLC (2003), David v. Caterpillar, Inc. (2003)
67 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866)
Relies on McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. · Simms v. Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services · Russell v. Acme-Evans Co.
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 148 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“evidence of the applicants' competing qualifications does not constitute evidence of pretext unless those differences are so favorable to the plaintiff that there can be no dispute among reasonable persons of impartial judgment that the plaintiff was clearly better qualified for the position at issue.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“reverse the verdict only if ... no rational jury could have found for the prevailing party.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]here an employer’s proffered nondiscriminatory reason for its employment decision is that it selected the most qualified candidate, evidence of the applicants’ competing qualifications does not constitute evidence of pretext “unless those differences are so favorable to the plaintiff that there can be no dispute among reasonable persons of impartial judgment that the plaintiff was clearly better qualified for the position at issue.” In other words, “[i]n effect, the plaintiffs credentials would have to be so superior to the credentials of the person selected for the job that ‘no reasonable person, in the exercise of impartial judgment, could have chosen the candidate selected over the plaintiff for the job in question.’ ” ... As we have stated, “[n]o matter how medieval a firm’s practices, no matter how high-handed its decisional process, no matter how mistaken the firm’s managers, [Title VII] does not interfere.” Rather, this “court must respect the employer’s unfettered discretion to choose among qualified candidates.” If we were to allow a jury to evaluate competing credentials to determine whether the employer’s assertion that it selected the best candidate was pretextual, the jury would in most cases be replacing the employer’s personnel department. Yet neither the judge nor the jury is “as well suited by training and experience to evaluate qualifications for high level promotion in other disciplines as are those persons who have trained and worked for years in that f”
3 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.