Swaaley v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 state decisions

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 68 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “An employee writing a letter such as we have here might be presumed to desire that the Department would cause his charges to be investigated. He would almost never be able to prove anything himself; that is hard enough for trained investigators using sophisticated techniques, and yet solely by rumor and hearsay he may have a pretty good idea where the bodies are buried. Hence, to say an employee reporting what he believes is going on is guilty of .misconduct if he cannot prove it, is tantamount to saying he is not to transmit anything at all. Any regulation which woúld compel the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions— and to do so on pain of dismissal from his job — leads to “self-censorship,” ... a result which cannot be tolerated in this area.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 594 F. Supp. 102 - Mustin v. Hayes · 422 So. 2d 791 - Maddox v. Clark

2. “Public employees have First Amendment rights which may not be curtailed arbitrarily or by vague and ill defined rules. [Citations omitted.] The rights are not absolute and Congress may limit them as they would otherwise be by clear and reasonable provisions. [Citations omitted.] * * * No statutes or regulations are cited to us specifically delimiting the form and content of petitions for redress of grievances by federal employees to the heads of their Departments. There seems to be no reason, in the inherent nature of Federal employment, or otherwise, why New York Times v. Sulli van, supra, should not be deemed, in the absence of legislation or regulation, to state the limits a federal employee may go towards defaming supervisory officials in the course of a petition, without loss of First Amendment protection. [180 Ct. Cl. at 11 — 12, 876 F. 2d at 863.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Jackson

3. “a petition by a federal employee to one above him in the executive hierarchy is covered by the First Amendment and if it includes defamation of any Federal official, protection is lost only under the circumstances in which a newspaper article would lose such protection if it defamed such official.” Swaaley v. United States, supra note 4, 180 Ct. Cl. at 12, 376 F.2d at 863 . Id., 180 Ct. Cl. at 3, 376 F.2d at 858 . Our holding is limited, of course, to the particular facts of this case. There can be no doubt that”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brousseau v. United States