Davis v. Ector County’s Empirical Analysis
40 F.3d 777 · 1994
Citation profile
27 federal appellate · 1 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently January 2025 · most notably Carter v. City of Philadelphia (1999), Brady v. Fort Bend County (1998)
27 federal appellate · 1 district · 15 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 Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers · Rankin v. McPherson · Jett v. Dallas Independent School District · Sloan v. Hicks
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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is perhaps no subset of `matters of public concern' more important than bringing official misconduct to light.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) A State or local governmental entity may not suspend or terminate the employment of, or take other adverse personnel action against, a public employee who in good faith reports a violation of law by the employing governmental entity or another public employee to an appropriate law enforcement authority. (b) In this section, a report is made to an appropriate law enforcement authority if the authority is part of a state or local governmental entity or of the federal government that the employee in good faith believes is authorized to: (1) regulate under or enforce the law alleged to be violated in the report; or (2) investigate or prosecute a violation of criminal law.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'Because of the unique structure of county government in Texas ... elected county officials, such as the sheriff ... hold[ ] virtually absolute sway over the particular tasks or areas of responsibility entrusted to him by state statute and is accountable to no one other than the voters for his conduct therein.... Thus, at least in those areas in which he, alone, is the final authority or ultimate repository of county power, his official conduct and decisions must necessarily be considered those of one "whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy”
2 later decisions 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.