West v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.’s Empirical Analysis
311 U.S. 223 · 1940
Citation profile
1,285 federal appellate · 323 district · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,060 later decisions (60 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate J Bosch Second National Bank of New Haven (1967), Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc. (1958)
1,285 federal appellate · 323 district · 47 state decisions — followed in 12 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
reviewedWest v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Field · Russell v. Todd · Six Companies of California v. Joint Highway District No. 13
Cited together with Erie Co v. Tompkins · Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate J Bosch Second National Bank of New Haven · Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Field · Six Companies of California v. Joint Highway District No. 13 · Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. of America, 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 3,060 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“not to be disregarded by a federal court unless it is convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide otherwise.”
178 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the federal court is not free to apply a different rule however desirable it may believe it to be, and even though it may think that the state Supreme Court may establish a different rule in some future litigation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he rules of decision established by judicial decisions of state courts are 'laws' as well as those prescribed by statute.”
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.