Jackson v. Gonzales’s Empirical Analysis
496 F.3d 703 · 2007
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 87 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 108 later decisions — most recently July 2020 · most notably Adeyemi v. District of Columbia (2008), Hairston v. Vance-Cooks (2014)
2 federal appellate · 87 district · 2 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 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 717 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 5 U.S.C. § 1302 · 5 U.S.C. § 2301 (Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002)
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc.
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 108 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hen an employer says it made a hiring decision based on the relative qualifications of the candidates, “we must assume that a reasonable juror who might disagree with the employer’s decision, but would find the question close, would not usually infer discrimination on the basis of a comparison of qualifications alone.” Aka v. Wash. Hosp. Ctr., 156 F.3d 1284, 1294 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (en banc). On the other hand, if a factfinder can conclude that a “reasonable employer would have found the plaintiff to be significantly better qualified for the job, but this employer did not, the factfinder can legitimately infer that the employer consciously selected a less-qualified candidate—something that employers do not usually do, unless some other strong consideration, such as discrimination, enters into the picture.” Id.; see also Holcomb, 433 F.3d at 897 ; Stewart v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 422, 429-30 (D.C. Cir. 2003). Applying Aka, we have explained that “[i]n order to justify an inference of discrimination, the qualifications gap must be great enough to be inherently indicative of discrimination.” Holcomb, 433 F.3d at 897 . To conclude otherwise would be to render the judiciary a “super-personnel department that reexamines an entity’s business decisions”—a role we have repeatedly disclaimed. See id. (quotation marks omitted).”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[P]ointing to differences in qualifications that merely indicate a “close call” does not get [plaintiff] beyond summary judgment. This Court will not reexamine governmental promotion decisions where it appears the Government was faced with a difficult decision between two qualified candidates, particularly where there is no other evidence that race played a part in the decision.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Smith v. Napolitano · Glenn v. Bair“Although intermediate evidentiary burdens shift back and forth under this framework, the ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff.”
3 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.