Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois’s Empirical Analysis
868 F.2d 943 · 1989
Citation profile
54 federal appellate · 9 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 104 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2014 · most notably Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois (1990), Thaddeus-X v. Blatter (1999)
54 federal appellate · 9 district · 3 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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291
Relies on Conley v. Gibson · United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers · Buckley v. Valeo
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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Mjerely failing to transfer or promote an employee is significantly less disruptive than discharging an employee. However, dismissing a complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) is proper only if it appears beyond doubt that a plaintiff can prove no facts to support his claim. While it may be highly unlikely that a person who is merely denied a transfer or promotion can prove that the decision was the substantial equivalent of a dismissal, we cannot make this determination as a matter of law based on the minimal facts contained in the complaint____ Whether a particular employment action is equivalent to a dismissal rests upon each case’s facts and circumstances.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““... the First Amendment, as the court below noted, already protects state employees not only from patronage dismissals but also from ‘even an act of retaliation as trivial as failing to hold a birthday party for a public employee ... when intended to punish her for exercising her free speech rights.’ ””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“disappointments, and possibly some injustices”
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.