Nichols’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 20 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently August 2021 · most notably Thomas v. International Business Machines (1995), Oden v. Oktibbeha County (2001)
3 federal appellate · 20 district · 2 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 Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Skidmore v. Swift & Co. · Basic Inc. v. Levinson · Carnegie v. United States · Rosenberg v. Comerica Bank
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) whether the elected official has plenary powers of appointment and removal, (2) whether the person in the position at issue is personally accountable to only that elected official, (3) whether the person in the position at issue represents the elected official in the eyes of the public, (4) whether the elected official exercises a considerable amount of control over the position, (5) the level of the position within the organization’s chain of command, and (6) the actual intimacy of the working relationship between the elected official and the person filling the position.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a person can be a member of an elected official's personal staff and not be either a policymaker or an immediate adviser”). 7 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The “personal staff” exemption to ADEA coverage exempts persons, like Special Assistant Attorneys General, who are chosen by an elected official to be on that official's personal staff, the official’s appointees on the policymaking level, and the official’s immediate advisors with respect to the exercise of the constitutional or legal powers of his office, 29 U.S.C. § 630 (f). Special Assistant Attorneys General serve at the will and pleasure of the Attorney General, as members of his personal staff, are appointees on the policymaking level, and advise the Attorney General on the exercise of his constitutional and legal powers.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Rutland v. Moore
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.