Matthews v. Rodgers’s Empirical Analysis
284 U.S. 521 · 1932
Citation profile
369 federal appellate · 161 district · 65 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,135 later decisions (118 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Burford v. Sun Oil Co. (1943), Yakus v. United States (1944)
369 federal appellate · 161 district · 65 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.
Relationships
Relies on Sawyer · Pusey & Jones Co. v. Hanssen · Payne v. Hook · Dows v. City of Chicago
Cited together with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman · Fair Assessment in Real Estate Assn., Inc. v. McNary · Rosewell v. National Bank · Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. · Tully v. Griffin, Inc.
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 1,135 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“scrupulous regard for the rightful independence of state governments.”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“numerous suits between the same parties, involving the same issues of law or fact.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Section 11 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 78 , provided that the circuit courts should have ‘cognizance ... of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity’ in cases appropriately brought in those courts. This provision is perpetuated in § 24 (1) of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 41 (1), [now §§ 1331 et seq\] which declares that the district courts shall have jurisdiction of such suits. The ‘jurisdiction’ thus conferred on the federal courts to entertain suits in equity is an authority to administer in equity suits the principles of the system of judicial remedies which had been devised and was being administered by the English Court of Chancery at the time of the separation of the two countries. . . . This clause of the statute does not define the jurisdiction of the district courts as federal courts, in the sense of their power or authority to hear and decide, but prescribes the body of doctrine which is to guide their decisions and enable them to determine whether in any given instance a suit of which a district court has jurisdiction as a federal court is an appropriate one for the exercise of the extraordinary powers of a court of equity. . . .””
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.