United States v. City & County of San Francisco’s Empirical Analysis
310 U.S. 16 · 1940
Citation profile
317 federal appellate · 111 district · 69 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 892 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Arnett v. Kennedy (1974), Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford County, Inc. (1984)
317 federal appellate · 111 district · 69 state decisions — followed in 15 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedCity & County of San Francisco v. United States (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States · Utah Power Light Company v. United States No 202 United States · Humphrey's Ex'r v. United States · Federal Trade Commission v. Raladam Co.
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 892 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“' "[t]he power over the public land thus entrusted to Congress is without limitations.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“retain the benefits of [a statute or regulation] while attacking the constitutionality of one of its provisions.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * we are satisfied that this case does not call for a balancing of equities or for the invocation of the generalities of judicial maxims in order to determine whether an injunction should have issued. * * * The equitable doctrines relied on do not militate against the capacity of a court of equity as a proper forum in which to make a declared policy of Congress effective.”
5 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.