Reilly v. City of Atlantic City’s Empirical Analysis
532 F.3d 216 · 2008
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 7 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 69 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably 134 S. Ct. 2369 - Lane v. Franks (2014), Weintraub v. Board of Education (2010)
17 federal appellate · 7 district ·
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 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 1367 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985
Relies on Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers · United States v. Nixon
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 69 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he act of offering truthful testimony is the responsibility of every citizen, and the First Amendment protection associated with fulfilling that duty of citizenship is not vitiated by one’s status as a public employee. That an employee’s official responsibilities provided the initial impetus to appear in court is immaterial to his/her independent obligation as a citizen to testify truthfully.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“(1) the employee must demonstrate that his/her speech is protected, that is, it addresses a matter of public concern and the ‘employee’s interest in the speech outweighs’ the employer’s countervailing interest ‘in promoting workplace efficiency and avoiding workplace disruption’ ... (2) the employee must prove that his/her speech was a ‘substantial or motivating factor’ in the retaliatory action against him/her, which, if proven; (3) shifts the burden to the employer to prove that the ‘allegedly retaliatory action would have been taken absent the protected [speech].’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Ceballos did not act as a citizen when he went about conducting his daily professional activities, such as supervising attorneys, investigating charges, and preparing filings. In the same way he did not speak as a citizen by writing a memo that addressed the proper disposition of a pending criminal case. When he went to work and performed the tasks he was paid to perform, Ceballos acted as a government employee. The fact that his duties sometimes required him to speak or write does not mean his supervisors were prohibited from evaluating his performance.”
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.