Conaway v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
853 F.2d 789 · 1988
Citation profile
131 federal appellate · 415 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 667 later decisions — most recently August 2025 · most notably Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (1998), O'Connor v. Steeves (1993)
131 federal appellate · 415 district · 19 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle
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 667 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In a response to a motion for summary judgment, a party cannot rely on ignorance of facts, on speculation, or on suspicion, and may not escape summary judgment in the mere hope that something will turn up at trial.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Speech which discloses any evidence of corruption, impropriety, or other malfeasance on the part of city officials, in terms of content, clearly concerns matters of public import.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[s]peech that seeks to expose improper operations of the government or questions the integrity of governmental officials clearly concerns vital public interests.”
9 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.