Wilburn v. Robinson’s Empirical Analysis
480 F.3d 1140 · 2007
Citation profile
38 federal appellate · 33 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 96 later decisions — most recently December 2022 · most notably Jones v. Bernanke (2009), United States v. Mitchell (2008)
38 federal appellate · 33 district · 3 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 28 U.S.C. § 2107 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Kentucky v. Graham · Browder v. Director Department of Corrections of 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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“First, the public employee must have spoken as a citizen on a matter of public concern. Second, the court must consider whether the governmental interest in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees outweighs the employee’s interest, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern. Third, the employee must show that her speech was a substantial or motivating factor in prompting the retaliatory or punitive act. Finally, the employee must refute the government employer’s showing, if made, that it would have reached the same decision in the absence of the protected speech.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The first requires determining whether the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern. If the answer is no, the employee has no First Amendment cause of action based on his or her employer’s reaction to the speech. If the answer is yes, then the possibility of a First Amendment claim arises. The question becomes whether the relevant government entity had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The dissent ... implies that the ... time limit contained in Rule 59(e) and the similar limit in Rule 60(b) imported from FRAP 4(a)(4)(A)(vi) are jurisdictional by an attenuated line of reasoning: (1) because 28 U.S.C. § 2107 (a) is jurisdictional, FRAP 4(a)(1)(A) must also be jurisdictional and (2) because FRAP 4(a)(1)(A) is jurisdictional, the timeliness provisions contained in FRAP 4(a)(4)(A) must also be jurisdictional — meaning that 28 U.S.C. § 2107 (a) renders Rule 59(e)’s [then] ten-day period jurisdictional, at least for the purpose of appellate tolling.... It is unlikely that the Supreme Court had such jurisdictional boot-strapping in mind when it so plainly tightened its use of the term ‘jurisdic tional’ in relation to express time prescriptions included in the federal rules.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Obaydullah v. Obama
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.