Walton v. Powell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When assessing Ms. Walton’s claim of unlawful retaliation under the First Amendment, the district court used the McDonnell Douglas heuristic to guide its analysis.’’). The Court is petplexed by this criticism. The Court did not discuss, much less apply, the McDonnell Douglas test anywhere in its analysis of Walton’s § 1983 claim for political retaliation. See QI MO at 100-114. It is true that the Court referenced the Defendants’ reliance on McDonnell Douglas for their Title VII and NMHRA retaliation claims in the context of the Court’s discussion of the MSJ in its procedural background Sec.tion. See QI MO at 54 (citing MSJ at 15). Indeed, the Court comprehensively reviewed in the procedural background all legal theories that both the MSJ and QI Motion raised. See QI MO at 52-83. Yet the Court, as noted above, bifurcated its analysis of the qualified immunity issue that the QI Motion raised and its analysis of the remaining issues in the MSJ between two memoranda opinions — the QI MO, which the Tenth Circuit reviewed, expressly limited its analysis to the issue of qualified immunity. See QI MO at 1 n.l ("Because the Defendants intend to file an interlocutory appeal solely on the denial of qualified immunity, the Court will address only that issue ....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Walton v. New Mexico State Land Office

2. “[I]t is for the district court to tell us what facts a reasonable jury might accept as true. But ... it is for this court to say whether those facts, together with all reasonable inferences they permit, fall in or out of legal bounds—whether they are or are not enough as a matter of law to permit a reasonable jury to issue a verdict for the plaintiff under the terms of the governing legal test for causation or any other legal element.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Crews v. Paine

3. “It's surely notable, too, that almost every circuit to have considered whether McDonnell Douglas should apply in First Amendment discrimination or retaliation cases has thought the idea a poor one. ... And notable that the only circuit with authority going the other way now seems uncertain. Compare Graning v. Sherburne County , 172 F.3d 611 , 615 & n.3 (8th Cir. 1999), with Wagner v. Jones , 664 F.3d 259 , 270 (8th Cir. 2011).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mahn v. Jefferson Cnty.