May v. Anderson’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
116 federal appellate · 44 district · 937 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,261 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Stanley v. Illinois (1972), Weinberger v. Salfi (1975)
116 federal appellate · 44 district · 937 state decisions — followed in 47 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 Milliken v. Meyer · Pennoyer v. Neff · Williams v. State of North Carolina · Estin v. Estin
Cited together with Stanley v. Illinois · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Williamson · People of State of New York Halvey v. Halvey
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 1,261 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[C]hildren have a very special place in life which law should reflect. Legal theories and their phrasing in other cases readily lead to fallacious reasoning if uncritically transferred to determination of a State's duty towards children.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[r]ights far more precious ... than property rights,”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“"[I]t is now too well settled to be open to further dispute that the full faith and credit clause and the act of Congress passed pursuant to it do not entitle a judgment in personam to extraterritorial effect if it be made to appear that it was rendered without jurisdiction over the person sought to be bound." (Footnotes omitted.)”
14 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.