United States v. Tobin’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 6 district ·

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

1. “A person uses the telephone to harass another if he or she intentionally employs the phone in a way that is not meant as a good faith effort to communicate with a person at the number called and is done with an unjustifiable motive [If] the caller causes the telephone of another to ring repeatedly and the caller is doing so for reasons other than a good faith effort to communicate with someone at the number called, the law deems such conduct to be harassing. So, in the context of this case, the word harass means and describes conduct that is intentionally designed not to communicate, but instead to impede, distract, disrupt or undermine, in a substantial and not a trivial way, the ability of persons at the called numbers to communicate with others and to effectively go about their business.”

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

2. “We think that a Congress that sought to reach and outlaw attempts wrongfully to disrupt communications would have used quite different language {e.g., “impede” access or use, “disrupt”), along the lines of state statutes that are expressly so aimed [footnote omitted]. * * * In sum we think that to equate harassment with any repeat calling done in bad faith is to enlarge the scope of the statute. We read subsection (D) to require an intent to provoke adverse reactions in the called party and hold that a bad motive of some other kind standing alone is not enough. There might be good reason for a federal statute directed to simple, deliberate disruption but that is a matter for Congress to determine.”

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

3. “Did an intent to harass exist if Tobin merely knew that anger and upset were almost certain to result from the carrying out of the scheme with its repeated ringing and blocking of communications? Or must Tobin have had a subjective purpose (i.e., an aim or desire) to cause the subject to feel harassed?”

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