Hayburn's case’s Empirical Analysis
2 U.S. 409 · 1792
Citation profile
134 federal appellate · 53 district · 68 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 491 later decisions (87 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Buckley v. Valeo (1976), Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala. (1957)
134 federal appellate · 53 district · 68 state decisions — followed in 21 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 491 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““That by the Constitution of the United States the government thereof is divided into three distinct and independent branches, and that it is the duty of each to abstain' from, and to oppose, encroachments on either. “That neither the legislative nor the executive branches can constitutionally assign to the judicial any duties but such as are properly judicial, and to be performed in a judicial manner. “That the duties assigned to the Circuit Courts, by this act, are not of.that description, and that the act itself does not appear to contemplate them as such, inasmuch as it subjects the decisions of these eourts, made pursuant to those duties, first to the consideration and suspension of the Secretary of War, and then to the revision of the Legislature ; whereas, by the Constitution, neither the Secretary of War, nor any other executive officer, nor even the Legislature, are authorized to sit as a eoirt of errors on.the judicial acts or opinions of this court.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]hat by the Constitution of the United States, the government thereof is divided into three distinct and independent branches, and that it is the duty of each to abstain from, and to oppose, encroachments on either.... [The Act] subjects the decisions of these courts, made pursuant to those [judicial] duties, first to the consideration and suspension of the secretary of war, and then to the revision of the Legislature; whereas, by the constitution, neither the secretary of war, nor any other executive officer, nor even the Legislature, are authorized to sit as a court of errors on the judicial acts or opinions of this court.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[N]o decision of any court of the United States can, under any circumstances, in our opinion, agreeable to the constitution, be liable to a reversion, or even suspension, by the legislature itself, in whom no judicial power of any kind appears to be vested....”
3 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.