William C. Ferguson v. Alvin I. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
430 F.2d 852 · 1970
Citation profile
202 federal appellate · 14 district · 39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 387 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2017 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Clemons v. Dougherty County (1982)
202 federal appellate · 14 district · 39 state decisions — followed in 21 states
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 · Provident Tradesmens Bank & Trust Co. v. Patterson · McNeese v. Board of Education for Community Unit School District 187 Cahokia · V The Board of Higher Education of the City of New York · Industrial National Bank of Rhode Island v. Wingate Corp.
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 387 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the instructor challenges his termination on grounds that his constitutional rights have been infringed, a decision of that claim may and should be avoided if valid non-discriminatory grounds are shown to have been the basis of the institution's action.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the standards of procedural due process are not wooden absolutes. The sufficiency of procedures employed in any particular situation must be judged in the light of the parties, the subject matter and the circumstances involved.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) be advised of the cause or causes for his termination in sufficient detail to fairly enable him to show any error that may exist, (b) be advised of the names and the nature of the testimony of witnesses against him, (c) be accorded a meaningful opportunity to be heard in his own defense at a reasonable time after such advice, (d) be accorded a hearing before a tribunal that both possesses some academic expertise and has an apparent impartiality toward the charges.”
8 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.