Forbus v. Sears Roebuck & Co.’s Empirical Analysis
958 F.2d 1036 · 1992
Citation profile
22 federal appellate · 6 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2013 · most notably Digital Equipment Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc. (1994), American Airlines, Inc. v. Cardoza-Rodriguez (1998)
22 federal appellate · 6 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.
Relationships
Relies on Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp. · Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay · Salve Regina College v. Russell
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Certainly the Retirees were at will employees before their retirement. Had Sears fired them, they would have had no cause of action for either breach of contract or fraud as a result of the termination of the employment relationship. In this case, however, Sears made a new arrangement with the Retirees prior to their termination in which Sears agreed to provide enhanced severance benefits in return for the Retirees’ agreement to execute releases and waivers. It is this supplemental contract, offered by Sears and accepted by the Retirees, that the Retirees say they were fraudulently induced to enter and about which they claim misrepresentations were made and facts suppressed. [Footnote omitted] The Retirees employment at will status that existed prior to this supplemental contract is only relevant to explain why the new arrangement was offered and accepted.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“encourage egregious behavior on the part of employers in forcing certain employees into early retirement for the economic benefit of the company.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“deter meritorious challenges to releases.”
2 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.