Hansberry v. Lee’s Empirical Analysis
311 U.S. 32 · 1940
Citation profile
920 federal appellate · 268 district · 625 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,295 later decisions (79 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Hanson v. Denckla (1958), Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore (1979)
920 federal appellate · 268 district · 625 state decisions — followed in 42 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 Pennoyer v. Neff · Tumey v. State of Ohio · Chicago Co v. City of Chicago · Brown v. State of Mississippi
Cited together with Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin · Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. · Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts · Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor · Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation
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 3,295 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“one is not bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been made a party by service of process.”
68 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“fairly insures the protection of the interests of absent parties who are to be bound by [the judgment].”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is familiar doctrine of the federal courts that members of a class not present as parties to the litigation may be bound by the judgment where they are in fact adequately represented by parties who are present, or where they actually participate in the conduct of the litigation in which members of the class are present as parties, or where the interest of the members of the class, some of whom are present as parties, is joint, or where for any other reason the relationship between the parties present and those who are absent is such as legally to entitle the former to stand in judgment for the latter.”
15 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.