McGrath v. Kristensen’s Empirical Analysis
340 U.S. 162 · 1950
Citation profile
334 federal appellate · 60 district · 77 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 644 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2020 · most notably Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983), United States Accardi v. Shaughnessy (1954)
334 federal appellate · 60 district · 77 state decisions — followed in 17 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
reviewedKristensen v. McGrath (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 2201
Relies on Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Estep v. United States · Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath · David Muskrat v. · Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman Steamship Corp.
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 644 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If Kristensen was not ‘residing’ at the time of his application for relief, he could not then have had ‘such liability’ for service. If there was no ‘liability’ for service the disqualification for citizenship under the penalty clause could not arise because the applicant had not made the ‘application’ referred to in the statute as ‘such application’. ‘Such application’ refers to an application to be relieved from ‘such liability.’ As there was no ‘liability’ for service his act in applying for relief from a nonexistent duty could not create a bar against naturalization. By the terms of the statute, that bar only comes into existence when an alien resident liable for service asks to be relieved.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““But the Act did not define who was a ‘male person residing in the United States,’ liable for training and service after December 20, 1941. 55 Stat. 845 . Such precisiveness was left for administrative regulation. Section 10(a) and (b), 54 Stat. 893 , 894, authorized the President to prescribe rules and regulations for the Act with power of delegation. The President prescribed the first regulations on September 23, 1940, and authorized the Director to prescribe amendments. Exec. Order 8545, 3 CFR, 1943 Cum.Supp., 719, 722. Amendments promulgating the regulations here applicable were issued, effective February 7, 1942, 7 Fed.Reg. 855.” McGrath v. Kristensen, 340 U.S. 162 , 173, 71 S.Ct. 224 , 231.”
2 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.