Bennett v. Schmidt’s Empirical Analysis
153 F.3d 516 · 1998
Citation profile
62 federal appellate · 24 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 221 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A. (2002), Victor H. Sparrow, Iii, v. United Air Lines, Inc., et al. (2000)
62 federal appellate · 24 district · 3 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Conley v. Gibson · Hishon v. King & Spalding · Kentucky v. Graham · Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer · Bartholet v. REISHAUER A.G.
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 221 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'I was turned down for a job because of my race' is all a complaint has to say.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief____the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim. To the contrary, all the Rules require is “a short and plain statement of the claim” that will give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiffs claim is and the grounds upon which it rests____ Such simplified “notice pleading” is made possible by the liberal opportunity for discovery and the other pretrial procedures established by the Rules to disclose more precisely the basis of both claim and defense and to define more narrowly the disputed facts and issues.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[c]omplaints 'need not plead law or match facts to every element of a legal theory.'”
4 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.