Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
1,666 federal appellate · 567 district · 1,871 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,196 later decisions (334 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Batson v. Kentucky (1986), Bell v. Wolfish (1979)
1,666 federal appellate · 567 district · 1,871 state decisions — followed in 49 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1253 · 28 U.S.C. § 2201 · 28 U.S.C. § 2281
Relies on Nebbia v. People of State of New York · Munn v. Illinois · West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish · Tigner v. Texas
Cited together with Dandridge v. Williams · City of New Orleans v. Dukes · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Vance v. Bradley · Ferguson v. Skrupa
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 6,196 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The day is gone when this Court uses the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down state laws, regulatory of business and industrial conditions, because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.”
285 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“attempt to free the profession, to as great an extent as possible, from all taints of commercialism,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We see no constitutional reason why a State may not treat all who deal with the human eye as members of a profession who should use no merchandising methods for obtaining customers.”
4 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.