Morrison v. Roberts’s Empirical Analysis
1938
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 1 district · 39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently February 2017 · most notably Oklahoma High School Athletic Ass'n v. Bray (1963), 174 W. Va. 8 - Bailey v. Truby (1984)
3 federal appellate · 1 district · 39 state decisions — followed in 11 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.
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The courts generally should leave the final authority in the athletic official or board, with whom that authority is placed by those who had authority to make the rules and authorize the method of application and enforcement. The plaintiff has many rights as a citizen and as a high school student, but he has no vested right in "eligibility" as dealt with at such great length in the rules of the Oklahoma High School Athletic Association. The defendant board of control was clothed with ample authority to so construe, apply, and enforce this rule, with its specific provision for "ineligibility" for one year. These rules are subject to change if the member schools desire a change. This may be done at the annual meeting or by referendum vote according to specific provision. But so long as these member schools ... desire to attach all of these many conditions, limitations, and restrictions on their "eligibles," then surely they should be permitted to do it, so far as the courts are concerned. There is nothing unlawful or evil in any of those rules nor in the provision resting final authority in the board of control. Surely the schools themselves should know better than anyone else the rules under which they want to compete with each other in athletic events. And doubtless every one of these rules is founded upon reasons wholly satisfactory to the member schools. And if the officials of the various high schools desire to maintain membership in the association, and to vest final rule”
1 later decision 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.