Case Citator › Village of Willowbrook v. Olech

Village of Willowbrook v. Olech

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
528 U.S. 562
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
96 of 96
Citing cases (total)
3,866
Treatment dates
2006–2008
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Village of Willowbrook v. Olech remains good law but has been limited: all 96 flagged citations have been read, and the 2 confirmed treatments are listed below. Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture confined Olech's class-of-one theory by holding it unavailable in public employment.
More on how this was screened

Walsh v. Town of Lakeville applied First Circuit law to add a malicious-or-bad-faith-intent requirement to a class-of-one claim. The other reviewed opinions followed or applied Olech, reported Engquist's limitation or adverse treatment of other precedent, or used nearby adverse language for an unrelated authority. One vacated opinion produced no treatment.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

3,866 later cases cite Village of Willowbrook v. Olech; 96 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Village of Willowbrook v. Olech?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Supreme Court confined Olech's class-of-one theory to exclude public-employment decisions, where differential treatment commonly results from the government's subjective, individualized discretion as an employer.

    Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    Unlike the context of arm’s-length regulation, such as in Olech, treating seemingly similarly situated individuals differently in the employment context is par for the course. Thus, the class-of-one theory of equal protection—which presupposes that like individuals should be treated alike, and that to treat them differently is to classify them in a way that must survive at least rationality review—is simply a poor fit in the public employment context. To treat employees differently is not to classify them in a way that raises equal protection concerns. Rather, it is simply to exercise the broad discretion that typically characterizes the employer-employee relationship.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The district court narrowed Olech's class-of-one rule by requiring proof that irrational differential treatment also resulted from malicious or bad-faith intent to injure.

    Walsh v. Town of Lakeville · D. Mass. · filed

    This Court is left in the tenuous position of attempting to harmonize seemingly antithetical case law. The best place to start is with the Willowbrook decision itself. Justice Breyer’s concurrence appears to view the Supreme Court’s per curiam opinion in a light unpopular with the other justices. Nevertheless, it is important to consider that although the Supreme Court did not affirm the “vindictive action” portion of the Seventh Circuit’s Willowbrook opinion, it did not overrule it either. See Willowbrook, 528 U.S. at 565, 120 S.Ct. 1073 (“We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, but do not reach the alternative theory of ‘subjective ill will’ relied on by that court.”). Moreover, the First Circuit’s opinion in Tapalian (in which Willowbrook is most recently cited) indicates that the subjective element is a factor that this Court must consider in equal protection cases like the one at bar. Walsh does not allege that, compared with others similarly situated, the defendants selectively treated her differently because of race, religion or an intent to inhibit or punish the exercise of constitutional rights but, rather, because of malicious or bad faith intent to injure her. Specifically, Walsh alleges that the defendants “intentionally and wrongfully singled [her] out ... for adverse treatment.” Thus, with respect to Walsh’s equal protection claim against the defendants, this Court will determine whether she has offered evidence sufficient to prove 1) that she was intentionally treated differently 2) from others similarly situated 3) without a rational basis for that difference in treatment and 4) that the difference in treatment was due to malicious or bad faith intent on the part of the defendants to injure her.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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