United States v. Kras’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
355 federal appellate · 125 district · 399 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,895 later decisions (44 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Grogan v. Garner (1991), San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973)
355 federal appellate · 125 district · 399 state decisions — followed in 43 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
Relies on Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Goldberg v. Kelly · First Nat. Bank of Ariz. v. Cities Service Co. · Fuentes v. Shevin · Dandridge v. Williams
Cited together with Boddie v. Connecticut · Ortwein v. Schwab · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Dandridge v. Williams · Shapiro v. Thompson
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 1,895 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is no constitutional right to obtain a discharge of one's debts in bankruptcy.”
60 later decisions quote this exact passage“(a) Any court of the United States may authorize the commencement, prosecution or defense of any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, or appeal therein, without prepayment of fees and costs or security therefor, by a person who makes affidavit that he is unable to pay such costs or give security therefor. Such affidavit shall state the nature of the action, defense or appeal and affiant’s belief that he is entitled to redress.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“stopped short of an unlimited rule that an indigent at all times and in all cases has the right to relief without the payment of fees.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Roller v. Gunn · Taylor v. Grubbs
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.