Crissman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 district ·

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.

1. “Fitzgerald vigorously asserts that the very interrelationship of the State with private racing associations constitutes a “symbiotic relationship” like that involved in Burton and affords him the protective embrace of the fourteenth amendment. Although Mountain Laurel is a private corporation, Fitzgerald points to Pennsylvania’s extensive regulation of racing operations requiring that track management and racing participants be licensed.- Furthermore, Pennsylvania through its Racing Commission delegates significant authority to racing officials who, although privately employed by the racing association, nevertheless have broad authorization from the State to enforce Racing Commission Rules. Pennsylvania also has a substantial financial interest in harness racing inasmuch as it collects tax revenues from the racing associations. Fitzgerald accordingly concludes that harness racing is essentially a joint venture between state and private enterprise in Pennsylvania and that a Burton symbiotic relationship is present. [T]he State’s relationship to the heavily regulated racing industry is not sufficient to establish a symbiotic relationship under Burton .... [W]e do not think the [State’s] relationship [with Mountain Laurel] is one which makes the State a joint venturer with Mountain Laurel. We cannot say that every act of Mountain Laurel is an act of the State. We therefore reject Fitzgerald’s claim of state action under Burton .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Guerrero v. Bensalem Racing Ass'n

2. “[W]e conclude that Burton stands for the proposition that, if a “symbiotic” relationship does exist then, by virtue of the close involvement of the state and interdependence of the actors in the association formed and the challenged activity, the conduct complained of is in fact “fairly attributable” to the state. Instead of examining the conduct and, then, the state’s role in it, Burton would have us look first at the relationship and test whether the conduct could be linked to the joint beneficial activities-as it was in Burton due to the essential revenues flowing from the discriminatory restaurant operation. We view Burton , then not as an exception to the rule that the conduct complained of must be fairly attributable to the state, but, rather, as providing another vantage point or way of assessing the necessary connection to the state.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 901 F. Supp. 2d 547 - Luck v. Mount Airy 1, LLC

3. “The Supreme Court has had little opportunity to address the impact on the state action inquiry of the flow of funds [from private entities to the' state], as most cases have involved the flow of money from the state to private entities. This is not surprising, for it would be a radical concept if the state’s receipt of funds from private actors were to convert them into state actors. If this were the case, the state’s receipt of tax revenue from a private entity’s operations would qualify most corporations as federal actors, which is surely not a desirable result. * * * In sum, the presence of both these elements — regulation and flow of funds— that are separately unpersuasive in the state action inquiry does not amount to more than each alone; the combination brings no greater result — namely, no state action.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Guerrero v. Bensalem Racing Ass'n