Samuels v. J Mackell Fernandez’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
957 federal appellate · 326 district · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,546 later decisions (96 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Younger v. Harris (1971), Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States (1976)
957 federal appellate · 326 district · 45 state decisions — followed in 12 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. § 1341 · 28 U.S.C. § 2201 · 28 U.S.C. § 2202 · 28 U.S.C. § 2283 · 28 U.S.C. § 2284
Relies on Younger v. Harris · Public Serv. Comm'n of Utah v. Wycoff Co. · Enochs v. Williams Packing & Navigation Co. · Brandenburg v. Ohio
Cited together with Younger v. Harris · Perez v. Ledesma · Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd. · Steffel v. Thompson · Boyle v. Landry
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 2,546 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We therefore hold that, in cases where the state criminal prosecution was begun prior to the federal suit, the same equitable principles relevant to the propriety of an injunction must be taken into consideration by federal district courts in determining whether to issue a declaratory judgment, and that where an injunction would be impermissible under these principles, declaratory relief should ordinarily be denied as well.”
33 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“result in precisely the same interference with and disruption of state proceedings that the long-standing policy limiting injunctions was designed to avoid.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“... the settled doctrine of equity that a federal court should not enjoin a state criminal prosecution begun prior to the institution of the federal suit except in very unusual situations, where necessary to prevent immediate irreparable injury.”
6 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.