91 N.C. App. 35 - Williams v. Hillhaven Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently March 2005 · most notably Coman v. Thomas Manufacturing Co. (1989), Pro v. Donatucci (1996)
6 federal appellate · 23 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
Relies on 174 Cal. App. 2d 184 - Petermann v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 396 · Oates v. Jag, Inc. · 79 N.C. App. 483 - Hogan v. Forsyth Country Club Co. · Childress v. Abeles · Smith v. Ford Motor Co.
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Tjaking the allegations in the complaint to be true as required by Rule 12(b)(6), the defendants in our opinion have violated the rationale of Sides . Although defendants did nothing to plaintiff before her testimony, they allegedly harassed and fired her after the fact because of her testimony. In effect, according to the complaint, they fired her for not committing perjury (as the plaintiff in Sides was told to do), even though they did not encourage her to do so. In Sides and the case sub judice, the plaintiff, according to the complaint, was discharged from her employment for telling the truth. Thus, the plaintiff falls into the same narrow exception to the general rule (that an employee at will has no tort claim for retaliatory discharge) that Sides created.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“One of the merited glories of this country is the multitude of rights that its people have, rights that are enforced as a matter of course by our courts, and nothing could be more inimical to their enjoyment than the unbridled law defying actions of some and the false or incomplete testimony of others. If we are to have law, those who so act against the public interest must be held accountable for the harm inflicted thereby; to accord them civil immunity would incongruously reward their lawlessness at the unjust expense of their innocent victims.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Thus, while there may be a right to terminate a contract at will for no reason, or for an arbitrary or irrational reason, there can be no right to terminate such a contract for an unlawful reason or purpose that contravenes public policy.... We hold, therefore, that no employer in this State, notwithstanding that an employment is at will, has the right to discharge an employee and deprive him of his livelihood without civil liability because he refuses to testify untruthfully or incompletely in a court case, as plaintiff alleges happened here.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.