Flemming v. Nestor’s Empirical Analysis
1960
Citation profile
909 federal appellate · 352 district · 704 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,193 later decisions (145 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Mathews v. Eldridge (1976)
909 federal appellate · 352 district · 704 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia District Court)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 3501
Relies on Rochin v. People of California · William Marbury v. James Madison · Trop v. Dulles · Helvering v. Mitchell
Cited together with Dandridge v. Williams · Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez · Richardson v. Belcher · Weinberger v. Salfi · Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc.
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 3,193 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Particularly when we deal with a withholding of a noncontractual benefit under a social welfare program such as [Social Security], we must recognize that the Due Process Clause can be thought to interpose a bar only if the statute manifests a patently arbitrary classification, utterly lacking in rational justification.”
105 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[O]nly the clearest proof could suffice to establish the unconstitutionality of a statute on such a ground.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“there are plausible reasons for [the legislative] action, [the court's] inquiry is at an end. It is, of course, 'constitutionally irrelevant whether this reasoning in fact underlay the legislative decision.'”
21 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.