Dombrowski v. Eastland’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
251 federal appellate · 138 district · 84 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 953 later decisions (50 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. (1986), Mitchell v. Forsyth (1985)
251 federal appellate · 138 district · 84 state decisions — followed in 18 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 Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Dombrowski v. Pfister · Tenney v. Brandhove · Wheeldin v. Wheeler · Kilbourn v. Thompson
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 953 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“not only from the consequences of litigation's results but also from the burden of defending themselves.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is the purpose and office of the doctrine of legislative immunity, having its roots as it does in the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, . . . that legislators engaged 'in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity' . . . should be protected not only from the consequences of litigation's results but also from the burden of defending themselves.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,”
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.