Rodriguez v. Torres’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district ·

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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The first case attempting to delineate the types of conduct sufficient to support a retaliatory harassment claim was the Seventh Circuit’s opinion in Bart v. Telford [, 677 F.2d 622 (7th Cir.1982) ]. The plaintiff in Bart was a city employee who took a leave of absence from her position to run for mayor. After she lost the race, she returned to her position with the city. Plaintiff claimed that the defendants, including the incumbent mayor, subjected plaintiff to a ‘campaign of petty harassments’ in retaliation for plaintiffs exercise of her First Amendment rights. The plaintiff claimed that the harassment campaign included such things as baseless reprimands and ‘holding her up to ridicule for bringing a birthday cake to the office on the occasion of the birthday of another employee although the practice was common and was especially favored.’ Bart, 677 F.2d at 622 . The court reversed the district court’s 12(b)(6) dismissal of this claim, stating ‘we cannot say as a matter of law that the exercise of First Amendment rights by public employees cannot be deferred by subjecting employees ... to harassment and ridicule.’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 214 F. Supp. 2d 468 - Zugarek v. Southern Tioga School District

2. “The effect on freedom of speech may be small, but since there is no justification for harassing people for exercising their constitutional rights it need not be great in order to be actionable. Yet even in the field of constitutional torts de minimis non curat lex .... It would trivialize the First Amendment to hold that harassment for exercising the right of free speech tuas always actionable no matter how unlikely to deter a person of ordinary firmness from that exercise .... However, more is alleged here—an entire campaign of harassment which though trivial in detail may have been substantial in gross. [ 677 F.2d at 625 ],”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 214 F. Supp. 2d 468 - Zugarek v. Southern Tioga School District