Colombo v. O'Connell’s Empirical Analysis
310 F.3d 115 · 2002
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 8 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2020 · most notably Gill v. Pidlypchak (2004), Williams v. Town of Greenburgh (2008)
7 federal appellate · 8 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 Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · West v. Atkins · Laird v. Tatum · Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad · Lewis v. Cowen
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'some official action [that] has caused the plaintiff to be deprived of his or her constitutional rights - in other words, there is an injury requirement to state the claim.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“an actual, non-speculative chilling effect”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[F]ar from O’Connell being foreclosed from bringing suit against Colombo in his private capacity, the right of a private individual to sue and defend in the courts is itself protected by the First Amendment because it is the right conservative of all other rights which lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is well-established that public employees do not check all of their First Amendment rights at the door upon accepting public employment. O’Connell, therefore, had no obligation to refrain from suing Colombo privately merely because he currently serves as the Superintendent of Schools of the Town of Stratford, nor did he violate her First Amendment rights by doing so. Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted).”
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.