Charles v. Grief’s Empirical Analysis
522 F.3d 508 · 2008
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 62 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Posey v. Lake Pend Oreille School District No. 84 (2008), Dahlia v. Rodriguez (2013)
20 federal appellate · 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. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers · Garcetti v. Ceballos · Kinney v. Weaver
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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[h]e was not in a professional position of trust and confidence like those of an assistant district attorney or a sheriff's deputy”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The magistrate judge commented in his report and recommendation that the question whether Charles’s statements were made in his capacity as a concerned citizen or as a Commission employee is ‘a material issue of genuine fact properly resolved at trial.’ On further reflection, we acknowledge that, even though analyzing whether Garcetti applies involves the consideration of factual circumstances surrounding the speech at issue, the question of whether [the plaintiffs] speech is entitled to protection is a legal conclusion properly decided at summary judgment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[m]ost significantly, though, Charles's speech ... was not made in the course of performing or fulfilling his job responsibilities, was not even indirectly related to his job, and was not made to higher-ups in his organization ... but was communicated directly to elected representatives of the people.”
1 later decision 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.