Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
5,649 federal appellate · 4,211 district · 476 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18,372 later decisions (180 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of United States Inc v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Consumer Alert (1983), Landgraf v. USI Film Products (1994)
5,649 federal appellate · 4,211 district · 476 state decisions — followed in 37 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
reviewedCitizens To Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 20 U.S.C. § 1531 · 23 U.S.C. § 103 · 23 U.S.C. § 128 · 23 U.S.C. § 138 · 42 U.S.C. § 1857 · 42 U.S.C. § 4321 (§ 2 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969) · 42 U.S.C. § 4371 (Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970) · 5 U.S.C. § 553 (Administrative Procedure Act of 1946)
Relies on Conley v. Gibson · Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation · Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States
Cited together with Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of United States Inc v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Consumer Alert · Camp v. Pitts · Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc. · Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. 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 18,372 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”
1,207 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“without observance of procedure required by law.”
261 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) there is no prudent and feasible alternative to using that land; and (2) the program or project includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the park, recreation area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site resulting from the use.”
32 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.