Eccles v. Peoples Bank of Lakewood Village’s Empirical Analysis
333 U.S. 426 · 1948
Citation profile
460 federal appellate · 108 district · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 947 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2018 · most notably Cannon v. University of Chicago (1979), Powell v. McCormack (1969)
460 federal appellate · 108 district · 47 state decisions — followed in 13 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
reviewedPeoples Bank v. Eccles (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Bell v. Hood · Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority · Brillhart v. Excess Insurance Co. of America · Meredith v. City of Winter Haven · Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman
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 947 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Especially where governmental action is involved, courts should not intervene unless the need for equitable relief is clear, not remote or speculative.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A declaratory judgment, like other forms of equitable relief, should be granted only as a matter of judicial discretion, exercised in the public interest.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A]n advisory opinion cannot be extracted from a federal court by agreement of the parties, and no matter how much they may favor the settlement of an important question of constitutional law, broad considerations of appropriate exercise of judicial power prevent such determinations unless actually compelled by the litigation before the Court.... Many of the same reasons are present which impel them to abstain from adjudicating constitutional claims against a statute before it effectively and presently impinges on such claims.”
7 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.