Wilhelm v. Morgan’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently March 2010
22 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 Kozesnik v. Township of Montgomery · Board of County Supervisors v. Carper · Board of County Sup'rs of Fairfax County v. Davis · Southern Railway Co. v. City of Richmond
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the purpose of a zoning ordinance is solely to serve the private interests of one or more landowners, the ordinance represents an arbitrary and capricious exercise of legislative power, constituting illegal spot zoning; but if the legislative purpose is to further the welfare of the entire county or city as a part of an overall zoning plan, the ordinance does not constitute illegal spot zoning even though private interests are simultaneously benefited.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“illegal spot zoning is arbitrary and capricious action of a special kind,”
1 later decision 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.