Foraker v. Chaffinch’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 6 district · 3 state decisions

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

1. “[Neither the United States nor the several states are required to recognize as a “petition” whatever particular communication is so characterized by one who chooses to protest governmental acts or omissions. But when government — federal or state — formally adopts a mechanism for redress of those grievances for which government is allegedly accountable, it would seem to undermine the Constitution’s vital purposes to hold that one who in good faith files an arguably meritorious “petition” invoking that mechanism may be disciplined for such invocation by the very government that in compliance with the petition clause has given the particular mechanism its constitutional imprimatur.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Holzemer v. City of Memphis · Moore v. DARLINGTON TWP.

2. “[a] public employee’s statement is protected activity when (1) in making it, the employee spoke as a citizen, (2) the statement involved a matter of public concern, and (3) the government employer did not have “an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public” as a result of the statement he made [i.e., the Pickering balancing test].”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Reilly v. City of Atlantic City · Whitfield v. Chartiers Valley School District

3. “We recognize that giving statements to the State Auditor was not part of their everyday duties and that Garcetti leaves open the possibility that speech within the workplace relating to non-job issues is protected. However, [one trooper] explained that he spoke to the auditors because “[i]t was my duty to speak to the auditors. The order came down from the executive office of the State of Delaware, meaning the Governor’s office. I am bound by that order.” Although this speech was compelled by their employer, this fact alone does not locate the speech within the realm of [the troopers’] job duties. Rather, what is dispositive is that the prior statements of [the troopers] within the chain of command prompted the order to speak with the State Auditor. Because the speech that motivated the order was within their job duties, the responsibility to respond to the subsequent order was also within the scope of their duties.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 39 F. Supp. 3d 572 - Tayoun v. City of Pittston