VanDevender v. Woods’s Empirical Analysis
2007
Citation profile
29 state decisions
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Texas Court of Appeals, 9th District (Beaumont))
Relationships
Relies on Peters v. Hobby · PDK Laboratories Inc. v. United States Drug Enforcement Administration · Neese v. Southern Railway Co. · In the Interest of B.L.D. · Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. v. Glyn-Jones
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Judicial restraint cautions that when a case may be decided on a non-constitutional ground, we should rest our decision on that ground and not wade into ancillary constitutional questions.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he cardinal principle of judicial restraint if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more counsels us to go no further.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In Re SN · In Re Higby“As a rule, we only decide constitutional questions when we cannot resolve issues on nonconstitutional grounds.”
2 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.