Ferrara v. Mills’s Empirical Analysis
781 F.2d 1508 · 1986
Citation profile
49 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 108 later decisions — most recently September 2023 · most notably Ruotolo v. City of New York (2008), Holbrook v. City of Alpharetta (1997)
49 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers · Bonner v. City of Prichard
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 108 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a public employee may not transform a personal grievance into a matter of public concern by invoking a supposed popular interest in the way public institutions are run.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Whether an employee's speech addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“relate[s] to matters of public concern is a question of law, and is therefore, readily susceptible to disposition on summary judgment.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.