Conley v.’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
8,362 federal appellate · 13,137 district · 1,953 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58,853 later decisions (165 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly (2007), Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009)
8,362 federal appellate · 13,137 district · 1,953 state decisions — followed in 43 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. A case is still cited after being overruled — to note the reversal, distinguish it, or in dissent. 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
reviewedLowery v. The Ellen S. Bouchard (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 45 U.S.C. § 151 (Railway Labor Act) · 45 U.S.C. § 153 (Railway Labor Act)
Relies on Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad · Slocum v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad · Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen · Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard
Cited together with Scheuer v. Rhodes · Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad · Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly · Haines v. Kerner · Monroe v. Pape
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 58,853 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.”
1,837 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers,”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How later courts have treated this case
Across 215 classified citations — whether each later court relied on, limited, or rejected this decision:
- 151followed
- 25explained
- 25cited without characterization
- 4distinguished
- 4criticized
- 3overruled
- 3questioned
Treatment is classified from each citing court's own sentence. This is a running sample — coverage grows as the classification pass proceeds; overrulings are also tracked authoritatively in the case status.