Perry v. Sindermann’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
3,969 federal appellate · 1,394 district · 1,972 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11,687 later decisions (205 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973)
3,969 federal appellate · 1,394 district · 1,972 state decisions — followed in 48 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
reviewedSindermann v. Perry (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co. · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Shapiro v. Thompson
Cited together with Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Bishop v. Wood · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Goldberg v. Kelly
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 11,687 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A person's interest in a benefit is a 'property' interest for due process purposes if there are such rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit and that he may invoke at a hearing.”
387 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“produce a result which [it] could not command directly.”
259 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"We have held today in Board of Regents v. Roth [citation omitted], that the Constitution does not require opportunity for a hearing before the nonrenewal of a nontenured teacher's contract, unless he can show that the decision not to rehire him somehow deprived him of an interest in `liberty' or that he had a `property' interest in continued employment, despite the lack of tenure or a formal contract. In Roth the teacher had not made a showing on either point to justify summary judgment in his favor."”
14 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.