Wiest v. Lynch’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) he or she engaged in a protected activity; (2) the employer knew that he or she engaged in the protected activity; (3) he or she suffered an unfavorable personnel action; and (4) the protected activity was a contributing factor in the unfavorable action.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Nielsen v. AECOM Technology Corp. · Wiest v. Lynch

2. “According to the Complaint, Wiest worked for approximately thirty-one years in Tyco’s accounting department until his termination in April 2010. For Wiest’s last ten years of employment, his office was under a high level of audit scrutiny due to the well-known corporate scandal involving its former parent company, Tyco International, and its CEO, Dennis Kozlowski. Around 2007, Wiest established a pattern of rejecting and questioning expenses that failed to satisfy accounting standards or securities and tax laws.... In mid-2008, Wiest refused to process a payment and sent an email to his supervisor regarding an event that Tyco intended to hold at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, which was similar to a corporate party under Kozlowski’s management that had drawn significant criticism. Expenses for the $350,000 Atlantis event included “Mermaid Greeters” and “Costumed Pirates/Wenches” at a cost of $3,000; a “Tattoo Artist (includes tattoos)” and “Limbo” and “Fire” at a cost of $2,350; chair decorations at a cost of $2,500; and hotel room rentals ranging from $475 to $1,000 per night. In an email to his supervisor, Wiest expressed his belief that the costs were inappropriately charged entirely as advertising expenses. He asserted that the costs needed to be detailed and charged as income to attending employees because the employees were bringing guests, and the expenses needed to “be reviewed for potential disallowance by a taxing authority based on excessive/extravagant spend [”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wiest v. Lynch

3. “In this case, the District Court did not decide this matter on the ground that Wiest’s pleadings failed to support a plausible inference that Tyco knew or suspected that Wiest had engaged in protected activity. Instead, the District Court decided that Wiest’s Complaint was inadequate because the communications did not “definitively and specifically” relate to a statute or rule listed in § 806 and failed to articulate facts that supported a reasonable belief of actionable fraudulent conduct directed at investors. Consistent with according Chevron deference to the ARB’s holding in Sylvester , we have found that the standards used by the District Court were too stringent. We now turn to Wiest’s Complaint to ascertain whether it states a § 806 claim for relief under the standard announced in Sylvester .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wiest v. Lynch