Willingham v. Morgan’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
333 federal appellate · 195 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,181 later decisions (29 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971), Butz v. Economou (1978)
333 federal appellate · 195 district · 4 state decisions
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
reviewedDeniel Morgan v. John T. Willingham, and C. A. Jarvis (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Barr v. Matteo · Rodriquez v. United States · Page v. Work · Tennessee v. Davis
Cited together with Mesa v. California · Arizona v. Manypenny · Watson v. Philip Morris Companies, Inc. · Jefferson County v. Acker · Boyle v. United Technologies Corp.
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 1,181 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Congress has decided that federal officers, and indeed the Federal Government itself, require the protection of a federal forum.”
69 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) A civil action or criminal prosecution commenced in a State court against any of the following persons may be removed by them to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place wherein it is pending: (1) Any officer of the United States or any agency thereof, or person acting under him, for any act under color of such office or on account of any right, title or authority claimed under any Act of Congress for the apprehension or punishment of criminals or the collection of the revenue.”
45 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Murray v. Murray · Guidry v. Durkin“'causal connection,' " which "consist[ed], simply enough, of the undisputed fact that petitioners were on duty, at their place of federal employment, at all the relevant times.”
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.