Abrams v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
534 F.2d 1226 · 1976
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 1 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2022 · most notably Chandler v. Roudebush (1976), Burrus v. United Telephone Co. of Kansas, Inc. (1982)
17 federal appellate · 1 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
Relies on McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Griggs v. Duke Power Co. · Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody · Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co. · Senter v. General Motors Corp.
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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““(i) that [she] belongs to a racial minority; (ii) that [she] applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer was seeking applicants; (iii) that, despite [her] qualifications, [she] was rejected; and (iv) that, after [her] rejection, the position remained open and the employer continued to seek applicants from persons of complainant’s qualifications.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We are well aware that [the selecting official’s] testimony was that he based his selection solely on his judgment that Miss Wehner’s experience and capability in performing the work of Supervisory Clerk at the Cleveland VA Hospital justified his selecting her without previously considering any of the other candidates. This may, of course, be the case, since neither the District Judge nor we are privileged to know the subjective thoughts and feelings of the selecting official given this absolute authority. It is, however, impossible for a record like this one to be written without convincing those intimately involved that the whole Merit Promotion Plan as operated was a cruel farce. Absolute discretion over employment decisions where subjective race prejudice may control (perhaps even without the executive’s knowledge) is no longer consistent with our law. (Citations omitted.) (Emphasis added.)”
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.