West v. Secretary of the Department of Transportation’s Empirical Analysis
206 F.3d 920 · 2000
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 14 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 92 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably Cantrell v. City of Long Beach (2001), Kern v. United States Bureau of Land Management (2002)
36 federal appellate · 14 district · 2 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 Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Califano v. Sanders · Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Council · County of Los Angeles v. Davis
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 92 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he central question of all mootness problems is whether changes in the circumstances that prevailed at the beginning of the litigation have forestalled any occasion for meaningful relief,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“could merely ignore the requirements of NEPA, build its structures before a case gets to court, and then hide behind the mootness doctrine. Such a result is not acceptable.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“that do not individually or cumulative[ly] have a significant environmental effect”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. California ex rel. Lockyer v. U.S. Department of Agriculture · Southwest Williamson County Community Association, Inc., a Non-Profit Tennessee Corporation v. Rodney E. Slater, in His Official Capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation Jane F. Garvey, in Her Official Capacity as Acting Administrator, Federal Highway Administration John Bruce Saltsman, Sr., in His Official Capacity as Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Transportation James Scapellato
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.