Argyropoulos v. City of Alton’s Empirical Analysis
539 F.3d 724 · 2008
Citation profile
56 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 156 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Stephens v. Erickson (2009), Gayton v. McCoy (2010)
56 federal appellate · 5 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)) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 701 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 704 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corporation · Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill · Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White · Robinson v. Shell Oil Co. · Gilbert v. Homar
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 156 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“involves more than just faulty reasoning or mistaken judgment on the part of the employer; it is [a] lie, specifically a phony reason for some action”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“inferences that are supported by only speculation or conjecture.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The similarly situated inquiry is a flexible, common-sense comparison based on ‘substantial similarity’ rather than a strict ‘one-to-one mapping between employees,’ but still requires ‘enough common features between the individuals to allow [for] a meaningful comparison.’ A meaningful comparison is one which serves ‘to eliminate confounding variables, such as differing roles, performance histories, or decision-making personnel, which helps to isolate the critical independent variable: complaints about discrimination.’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Loving v. Geithner
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.