Little v. Republic Refining Co.’s Empirical Analysis
924 F.2d 93 · 1991
Citation profile
60 federal appellate · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 216 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably Douglass v. United Services Automobile Ass'n (1996), Aramburu v. Boeing Co. (1997)
60 federal appellate · 12 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 Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · The Boeing Company v. Daniel C. Shipman · Stafford v. Oklahoma · United States v. Louisiana · Bienkowski v. American Airlines, Inc.
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 216 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“gave preferential treatment to [] [another] employee under 'nearly identical' circumstances”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[E'jven an incorrect belief that an employee’s performance is inadequate constitutes a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. We do not try in court the validity of good faith beliefs as to an employee’s competence. Motive is the issue.... [A] dispute in the evidence concerning ... job performance does not provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable factfinder to infer that [the] proffered justification is unworthy of credence. 2”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[E]ven an incorrect belief that an employee’s performance is inadequate constitutes a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. We do not try in court the validity of good faith beliefs to an employee’s competence. Motive is the issue ... [A] dispute in the evidence concerning ... job performance does not provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable factfinder to infer that [the] proffered justification is unworthy of credence.”
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.