West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish’s Empirical Analysis
300 U.S. 379 · 1937
Citation profile
325 federal appellate · 90 district · 689 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,605 later decisions (115 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Griswold v. State of Connecticut (1965), Joshua Deshaney, a Minor, by His Guardian Ad Litem, and Melody Deshaney,s v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, et al. (1989)
325 federal appellate · 90 district · 689 state decisions — followed in 45 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 Nebbia v. People of State of New York · Mugler v. State of Kansas State of Kansas Tufts · Munn v. Illinois · Joseph Lochner v. People of the State of New York · Bain Jr
Cited together with Nebbia v. People of State of New York · Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. · Joseph Lochner v. People of the State of New York · Adkins v. Children's Hospital of the District of Columbia Same · Ferguson v. Skrupa
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 1,605 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In dealing with the relation of employer and employed, the [state] has necessarily a wide field of discretion in order that there may be suitable protection of health and safety, and that peace and good order may be promoted through regulations designed to insure wholesome conditions of work and freedom from oppression.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"... This Court has frequently held that the legislative authority, acting within its proper field, is not bound to extend its regulation to all cases which it might possibly reach. The legislature `is free to recognize degrees of harm and it may confine its restrictions to those classes of cases where the need is deemed to be clearest.' If `the law presumably hits the evil where it is most felt, it is not to be overthrown because there are other instances to which it might have been applied.' There is no `doctrinaire requirement' that the legislation should be couched in all embracing terms...." (p. 400.)”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he function of courts in the application of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is to determine in each case whether circumstances vindicate the challenged regulation as a reasonable exertion of governmental authority or condemn it as arbitrary or discriminatory. . So far as the requirement of due process is concerned, and in the absence of other constitutional restriction, a state is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose. The courts are without authority either to declare such policy, or, when it is declared by the legislature, to override it. If the laws passed are seen to have a reasonable relation to a proper legislative purpose, and are neither arbitrary nor discriminatory, the requirements of due process are satisfied, and judicial determination to that effect renders a court functus officio. •”
6 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.