Priest v. Rotary’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 3 district · 4 state decisions

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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The possibility that discovery tactics such as that used by defendant herein might intimidate, inhibit, or discourage Title VII plaintiffs such as Ms. Priest from pursuing their claims would clearly contravene the remedial effect intended by Congress in enacting Title VII, and should not be tolerated by the federal courts. In fact, it was to empower federal courts to prevent such unjust effects that Rule 26(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure was enacted. Sexual harassment plaintiffs would appear to require particular protection from this sort of intimidation and discouragement if the statutory cause of action for such claims is to have meaning. Without such protection from the courts, employees whose intimate lives are unjustifiably and offensively intruded upon in the workplace might face the “Catch-22” of invoking their statutory remedy only at the risk of enduring further intrusions into irrelevant details of their personal lives in discovery, and, presumably, in open court.... [¶] This Court is deeply concerned that civil complaints based on sexual harassment in the workplace will be similarly inhibited, if discovery tactics such as the one used by defendant herein are allowed to flourish. [Emphasis added.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Macklin v. Mendenhall