Merritt v. Dillard Paper Co.’s Empirical Analysis
120 F.3d 1181 · 1997
Citation profile
114 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 269 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably United States v. Steele (1998), Alvarez v. Royal Atlantic Developers, Inc. (2010)
114 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 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 McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Bailey v. United States · Connecticut National Bank v. Germain · United States v. Gonzales · Rowland v. California Men's Colony, Unit II Men's Advisory Council
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 269 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In construing a statute we must begin, and often should end as well, with the language of the statute itself.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the adjective 'any' is not ambiguous; it has a well-established meaning.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'Congress did not add any language limiting the breadth of that word,' ... 'any' means all.”
6 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.