Vance v. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co.’s Empirical Analysis
863 F.2d 1503 · 1989
Citation profile
71 federal appellate · 22 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 173 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. (1993), Gilbert v. Derwinski (1990)
71 federal appellate · 22 district · 11 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. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985 · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 701 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson · United States Postal Service Board of Governors v. Aikens · Smith v. Wade
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 173 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hat may appear to be a legitimate justification for a single incident of alleged harassment may look pretextual when viewed in the context of several other related incidents.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“by the totality of the circumstances, the existence of a hostile or abusive environment which is severe enough to affect the psychological stability of a minority employee.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A hostile environment claim is a single cause of action rather than a sum total of a number of mutually distinct causes of action to be judged each on its own merits.”
4 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.