Ex parte Virginia’s Empirical Analysis
100 U.S. 339 · 1879
Citation profile
366 federal appellate · 95 district · 191 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,309 later decisions (234 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
366 federal appellate · 95 district · 191 state decisions — followed in 38 states
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 William Marbury v. James Madison · United States v. Cruikshank · Ex parte Lange · Slaughter-House Cases the Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live
Cited together with Strauder v. West Virginia · Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer · Katzenbach v. Morgan · Monroe v. Pape · Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al.
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 1,309 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power.”
92 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.””
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“might as well have been committed to a private person as to one holding the office of a judge,”
14 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.