Spiegla v. Hull’s Empirical Analysis
371 F.3d 928 · 2004
Citation profile
69 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 182 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Christensen v. County of Boone (2007), Roger Whitmore's Automotive Services, Inc. v. Lake County (2005)
69 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 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. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers
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 182 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The First Amendment[ ]... protects government employees from termination because of their speech on matters of public concern .... To prevail, an employee must prove that the conduct at issue was constitutionally protected, and that it was a substantial or motivating factor in the termination.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“up to ridicule for bringing a birthday cake to the office on the occasion of the birthday of another employee although the practice was common and was especially favored.” Id. at 625 . Reversing the district court's 12(b)(6) dismissal, we held that a campaign of harassment”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Massey v. Johnson“Speech by a government employee relating to ordinary matters of internal operation and lacking connection to `any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community' is not entitled to First Amendment protection.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Schad v. Jones
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.