Bunting v. City of Columbia’s Empirical Analysis
639 F.2d 1090 · 1981
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 5 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently April 2017 · most notably Daigle v. City of Portsmouth (1987), Russo v. New York (1982)
20 federal appellate · 5 district · 10 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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Bishop v. Wood · McNeill v. Butz
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Although there was some publicity surrounding the discharges of Tyler and Bunting, the only reason for their dismissal that was made public was that their services did not meet the expectations of the police department. Such a remark cannot be viewed as a comment of such damaging effect as to impair Bunting’s and Tyler’s standing in the community. Furthermore, we are not willing to conclude that they were stigmatized to such a degree that their freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities was foreclosed. Certainly, a person who has been fired may be somewhat less attractive to other potential employers, but it would be stretching the concept too far to conclude that a person’s liberty interest is impaired merely because he has been discharged.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573-75 [ 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707-2708 , 33 L.Ed.2d 548 ] (1972), the Supreme Court indicated that when a public employer who, in refusing to rehire an employee, makes charges against him that might damage his standing in the community or otherwise imposes a stigma on the employee that forecloses his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities, an employee’s interest in liberty may be implicated, and he should be granted a hearing to clear his name. This liberty interest was qualified further by the Supreme Court in Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 348 [ 96 S.Ct. 2074, 2079 , 48 L.Ed.2d 684 ] (1976) where the Court noted that when there is no public disclosure of the reasons for discharging a public employee whose job is terminable at the will of the employer, no liberty interest is implicated.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“shall be the Chief Executive officer and head of the administrative branch of the municipal government. He ... shall: (1) appoint and when necessary for the good cause of the municipality, remove any appointive officer or employee of the municipality____”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Mills v. Leath
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.