Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1965
Citation profile
824 federal appellate · 166 district · 152 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,840 later decisions (115 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Shapiro v. Thompson (1969), United States v. Lopez (1995)
824 federal appellate · 166 district · 152 state decisions — followed in 28 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. § 2201 · 42 U.S.C. § 2000A (Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Village of Euclid Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co · Caminetti v. United States · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.
Cited together with Katzenbach v. McClung · Wickard v. Filburn · United States v. Lopez · United States v. Darby · Perez v. United States
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 1,840 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In determining whether an exercise of congressional power is valid under the commerce clause a court may consider only (1) whether there is any rational basis for a congressional finding that the regulated activity affects interstate commerce; and (2) whether “the means chosen by [Congress are] reasonably adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution.””
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Thus the power of Congress to promote interstate commerce also includes the power to regulate the local incidents thereof, including local activities in both the States of origin and destination, which might have a substantial and harmful effect upon that commerce.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he authority of Congress to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from immoral and injurious uses has been frequently sustained, and is no longer open to question.”
10 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.