Ceballos v. Garcetti’s Empirical Analysis
361 F.3d 1168 · 2004
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2022 · most notably Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), Lacey v. Maricopa County (2012)
26 federal appellate · 3 district ·
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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Brady v. State of Maryland · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Ordinarily, an official designated as an official of a county — as is the District Attorney of the County of Los Angeles — is a county official for all purposes. Some officials, however, serve two masters. Among them are California’s 58 district attorneys: While these officers are elected by and for the counties, they prosecute cases on behalf of the state. In such mixed circumstances, we determine whether the officer is a state or a county official by examining state law to determine whether the particular acts the official is alleged to have committed fall within the range of his state or county functions. McMillian ..., 520 U.S. 781, 785-86 , 117 S.Ct. 1734 .... The California Supreme Court has held that a district attorney is a state official when he acts as a public prosecutor....”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“in effect a suit against the state treasury.” (Order [55] at 5-6.) . The plaintiff in Garcetti was a deputy district attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office who claimed that his supervisors in the DA’s Office retaliated against him after he drafted a memo discussing misrepresentations in an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant. The Ninth Circuit had held that the memo constituted protected speech because it addressed governmental misconduct, which is”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] state and its officials sued in their official capacity are not considered `persons' within the meaning of § 1983.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wolfe v. Strankman
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.