Presbyterian Church in US v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
175 federal appellate · 78 district · 905 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,426 later decisions (57 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith (1990), Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York (1970)
175 federal appellate · 78 district · 905 state decisions — followed in 43 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
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III · Watson v. Jones · Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America
Cited together with Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for United States and Canada v. Milivojevich · Jones v. Wolf · Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America · Watson v. Jones · Maryland and Virginia Eldership of Churches of God v. Church of God at Sharpsburg 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 1,426 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the First Amendment severely circumscribes the role that civil courts may play in resolving church property disputes.”
116 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“. . . we think the rule of action which should govern the civil courts, founded in a broad and sound view of the relations of church and state under our system of laws, and supported by a preponderating weight of judicial authority is, that, whenever the questions of discipline, or of faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these church judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final, and as binding on them, in their application to the case before them.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“ordaining of women as ministers and ruling elders, making pronouncements and recommendations concerning civil, economic, social, and political matters, giving support to the removal of Bible reading and prayers by children in the public schools, adopting certain Sunday School literature and teaching neo-orthodoxy alien to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, as originally adopted by the general church, and causing all members to remain in the National Council of Churches of Christ and willingly accepting its leadership which advocated named practices, such as the subverting of parental authority, civil disobedience, and intermeddling in civil affairs”; also “that the general church has . . . made pronouncements in matters involving international issues such as the Vietnam conflict and has disseminated publications denying the Holy Trinity and violating the moral and ethical standards of the faith.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.