United States v. Lee’s Empirical Analysis
106 U.S. 196 · 1882
Citation profile
511 federal appellate · 200 district · 301 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,675 later decisions (164 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971), Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908)
511 federal appellate · 200 district · 301 state decisions — followed in 41 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 Osborn v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Cohens v. Virginia · John Den James Murray and John Kayser v. The Hoboken Land and Improvement Company John Den James B Murray et al. · Kilbourn v. Thompson
Cited together with Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp. · Land US v. Dollar · Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson · Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Tindal v. Wesley
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 1,675 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.”
53 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. In re Ayers · Belknap v. Schild““And while the exemption of the United States and of the several states from being subjected as defendants to ordinary actions in the courts has since that time been repeatedly asserted here, the principle has never leen discussed or the reasons for it given, but it has always been treated as an establishd doctrine. United States v. Clarke, 8 Pet. 436 ; United States v. McLemore, 4 How. 286 ; Hill v. United States, 9 How. 386 ; Nations v. Johnson, 24 How. 195 , 16 L. Ed. 628 ; The Siren, 7 Wall. 152 , 19 L. Ed. 129 ; The Davis, 10 Wall. 15 , 19 L. Ed. 875 .””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“This proposition rests on the principle that the United States cannot be lawfully sued without its consent, in any case, and that no action can be maintained against any individual without such consent, where the judgment must depend on the right of the United States to property held by such persons as officers or agents for the Government. The first branch of this proposition is conceded to be the established law of this country and of this court, at the present day ; the second as a necessary or proper deduction from the first is denied.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.