Laird v. Tatum’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
941 federal appellate · 415 district · 128 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,602 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), Scheuer v. Rhodes (1974)
941 federal appellate · 415 district · 128 state decisions — followed in 24 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
reviewedTatum v. Laird (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Flast v. Cohen · McKart v. United States · Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY · Grayned v. City of Rockford
Cited together with Warth v. Seldin · Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife · Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc. · Baker v. Carr · O'Shea v. Littleton
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 2,602 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a]llegations of a subjective 'chill' are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.”
78 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[C]onstitutional violations may arise from the deterrent, or 'chilling,' effect of governmental regulations that fall short of a direct prohibition against the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“monitors of the wisdom and soundness of Executive action,”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Vitek v. Jones · Allen v. Wright
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.