Sullivan v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
544 F.2d 279 · 1976
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 5 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably Hughes v. Whitmer (1983), Wright v. MetroHealth Medical Center (1995)
23 federal appellate · 5 district · 7 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 Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Perry v. Sindermann · Paul v. Davis · Bishop v. Wood · Goss v. Lopez
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.
“* * j(; % -Jfi * The federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies. We must accept the harsh fact that numerous individual mistakes are inevitable in the day-to-day administration of our affairs. The United States Constitution cannot feasibly be construed to require federal judicial review for every such error. In the absence óf any claim that the public employer was motivated by a desire to curtail or penalize the exercise of an employee’s constitutionally protected rights, we must presume that the official action was regular and, if erroneous, can best be corrected in other ways. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel decisions.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“The concept of “liberty” recognizes two particular interests of a public employee: 1) the protection of his or her good name, reputation, honor and integrity; and, 2) his or her freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities. Roth, supra, 408 U.S. 564 at 573-74 , 92 S.Ct. 2701 at 2707-08 . The charges made must be of such a nature as to damage seriously his or her standing and associations in the community. Id. at 573 , 92 S.Ct. 2701 at 2707 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Certainly there is no suggestion in Roth to indicate that a hearing would be required each time the State in its capacity as employer might be considered responsible for a statement defaming an employee who continues to be an employee”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.