Stilp v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 state decisions

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

1. “A fair reading of Consumer Party does support the view that an unreasonable expense allowance could be unconstitutional. The Consumer Party Court indicated that a plaintiff asserting that an expense allowance is unreasonable has a heavy burden to prove that the challenged expense allowance is, in reality, not needed and not intended to pay for the legitimate expenses of Legislators, and that it is a sham designed to hide a salary increase. Stilp, however, has not averred any facts in his complaint that could support a cause of action on the theory that the Act 51 expense allowance is unreasonable.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stilp v. Commonwealth

2. “Merely because the expense allowances and COLAs are determined by using the same formula does not automatically transform the expense allowances into additional salary. Moreover, the COLAs and the expense allowances are calculated using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers. Section 4 of the Law. In our view, it is not unreasonable to augment the Legislators’ expense allowance and salary in proportion to actual increases in the cost of living measured by the consumer price index.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stilp v. Commonwealth