Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co.’s Empirical Analysis
339 U.S. 667 · 1950
Citation profile
1,382 federal appellate · 600 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,819 later decisions (58 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Franchise Tax Board of the State of California v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern California (1983), Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp. (1988)
1,382 federal appellate · 600 district · 55 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
reviewedSkelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co. (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 717F · 28 U.S.C. § 1257 · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 2106 · 28 U.S.C. § 2201
Relies on Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Gully v. First Nat. Bank in Meridian · Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Mottley · Eisner v. Macomber
Cited together with Public Serv. Comm'n of Utah v. Wycoff Co. · Gully v. First Nat. Bank in Meridian · Franchise Tax Board of the State of California v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern California · Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Mottley
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 3,819 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“enlarged the range of remedies available in the federal courts but did not extend their jurisdiction”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“To sanction suits for declaratory relief as within the jurisdiction of the District Courts merely because, as in this case, artful pleading anticipates a defense based on federal law would contravene the whole trend of jurisdictional legislation by Congress, disregard the effective functioning of the federal judicial system and distort the limited procedural purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]hether a case is one arising under the Constitution or a law or treaty of the United States, in the sense of the jurisdictional statute, ... must be determined from what necessarily appears in the plaintiffs statement of his own claim in the bill or declaration, unaided by anything alleged in anticipation of avoidance of defenses which it is thought the defendant may interpose.”
16 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.