Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
261 federal appellate · 135 district · 730 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,569 later decisions (58 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), Payne v. Tennessee (1991)
261 federal appellate · 135 district · 730 state decisions — followed in 44 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 Bolling v. Sharpe · Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections Butts · Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. · Grosjean v. American Press Co. · Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co.
Cited together with Federal Communications Commission v. Beach Communications, Inc. · Heller v. Doe Ex Rel. Doe · City of New Orleans v. Dukes · City of Cleburne Texas v. Cleburne Living Center · Dandridge v. Williams
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 1,569 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Where taxation is concerned and no specific federal right, apart from equal protection, is imperiled, the States have large leeway in making classifications and drawing lines which in their judgment produce reasonable systems of taxation.”
91 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“" 'The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment goes no further than to prohibit invidious discrimination. . . . If there is some reasonable basis for the recognition of separate classes, and if the disparate treatment of the classes has a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the lawmakers, the Constitution is not offended. The transgression arises only when the classification rests upon grounds wholly irrelevant to achievement of the State's objective; the separate treatment must admit of but one conclusion beyond a rational doubt, i.e., that the basis therefore is arbitrary and unreasonable and without relevance to the legislative goal.' "”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]t has repeatedly been held and appears to be entirely settled that a statute which encourages the location within the State of needed and useful industries by exempting them, though not also others, from its taxes is not arbitrary and does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Similarly, it has long been settled that a classification, though discriminatory, is not arbitrary or violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it.”
2 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.