Bence v. Breier’s Empirical Analysis
501 F.2d 1185 · 1974
Citation profile
37 federal appellate · 6 district · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 79 later decisions — most recently August 2011 · most notably Egger v. Phillips (1983), Janusaitis v. Middlebury Volunteer Fire Department (1979)
37 federal appellate · 6 district · 16 state decisions — followed in 11 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 Grayned v. City of Rockford · Connally v. General Construction Co. · Arnett v. Kennedy · Parker v. Levy · Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY
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 79 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. . . “[I]t is necessary to examine whether the rule creates a standard of conduct which is capable of objective interpretation by those policemen who must abide by it, by those Departmental officials who must enforce it, and by any administrative or judicial tribunal which might review any disciplinary proceeding. Bence v. Breier, 357 F.Supp. 231 (E.D.Wis.1973). On its face, the rule proscribes only conduct which is both ‘unbecoming’ and ‘detrimental to the service.’ It is obvious, however, that any apparent limitation on the prohibited conduct through the use of these qualifying terms is illusory, for ‘unbecoming’ and ‘detrimental to the service’ have no inherent, objective content from which ascertainable standards defining the proscribed conduct could be fashioned. Like beauty, their content exists only in the eye of the beholder. The subjectivity implicit in the language of the rule permits police officials to enforce the rule with unfettered discretion, and it is precisely this potential for arbitrary enforcement which is abhorrent to the Due Process Clause. Further, where, as here, a rule contains no ascertainable standards for enforcement, administrative and judicial review can be only a meaningless gesture. There is simply no benchmark against which the validity of the application of the rule in any particular disciplinary action can be tested. The language of the rule additionally offers no guidance to those conscientious members of the Department who seek to avoid ”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“conduct unbecoming a member and detrimental to the service”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he root of the vagueness doctrine is a rough idea of fairness.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.