Naucke’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
5 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably 252 F. Supp. 2d 799 - Miller v. Wells Dairy, Inc. (2003), 741 F. Supp. 2d 1010 - Dorr v. Weber (2010)
5 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Smith v. Wade · Bloch v. Ribar · Bart v. Telford · Jaurequi v. Carter Manufacturing 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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t can be inferred from the evidence that [the employer] sought to punish [the employee] because of [the employee's protected activity], then there exists a genuine issue of material fact as to whether [the employee's] speech was a substantial or motivating factor in [the] termination.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“while causation is generally a jury question, it can provide the basis for summary judgment when `the question is so free from doubt as to justify taking it from the jury'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“nonmovant must present more than a scintilla of evidence and must advance specific facts to create a genuine issue of material fact for trial.”
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.