Scheib v. Grant’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Both the Second and Tenth Circuits held that, unlike the typical circumstance of interspousal wiretapping, the interception of a minor child’s telephone conversations by use of an extension phone in the family home is permitted by a broad reading of the exemption in § 2510(5)(a)(i). Newcomb, 944 F.2d at 1536 ; Anonymous, 558 F.2d at 679 . “There is no persuasive reason why Congress would exempt a business extension and not one in the home.” Newcomb, 944 F.2d at 1536 . In support of their respective holdings, both courts noted that the legislative history of Title III revealed that Congress considered the very problem of a parent eavesdropping on a minor child within the family home. Indeed, as pointed out by the Second Circuit, the language “ordinary course of [the user’s] business” was added to the House bill only after Professor Herman Schwartz testified that he feared that the original version of the bill would permit policemen and private intruders to enter others’ homes and listen in on extension phones without penalty. Anonymous, 558 F.2d at 679 . Professor Schwartz, however, did not recommend deleting the extension phone exemption altogether. To be sure, Professor Schwartz stated: “Now, we can see in certain circumstances where [the exemption] makes some sense. I take it nobody wants to make it a crime for a father to listen in on his teenage daughter or some such related problem.” Hearings on the Anti-Crime Program Before Subcomm. No. 5 of the House Judiciary Comm., 9”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Campbell v. Price

2. “person commits eavesdropping when he ... [u]ses or divulges ... any information which he knows or reasonably should know was obtained through the use of an eavesdropping device.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Scheib v. Grant

3. “the Grants and Dorothy Johnson disclosed alleged portions of the tape recordings to each other, to other persons and to Judge Moshe Jacobius.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Scheib v. Grant