Davis v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
617 F.2d 1100 · 1980
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 3 state decisions
Relationships
Applies 10 U.S.C. § 933 · 10 U.S.C. § 934 · 28 U.S.C. § 46 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 5 U.S.C. § 7501 (Civil Service Due Process Amendments)
Relies on Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Elrod v. Burns · Broadrick v. Oklahoma · Grayned v. City of Rockford · Arnett v. Kennedy
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]n private employment, one can be disciplined for almost any reason or for no reason; that this arrangement obtains is generally known. In civil-service employment, by contrast, discharge or discipline must rest on "cause.” Fair notice consequently requires some attempt at specifying what actions constitute cause, but it may well be impossible for the mind to imagine or the hand tó transcribe every sort of human misconduct that might fairly call for discipline. And if that were possible, the product would doubtless fill volumes of particulars and therefore go unread — except perhaps by superiors searching out ad hoc grounds for disciplinary action already determined on [sic].”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“portion of the rules most offensive to the first amendment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Bickel v. Burkhart
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.