Morton v. Ruiz’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
1,059 federal appellate · 404 district · 187 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,853 later decisions (53 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984), Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987)
1,059 federal appellate · 404 district · 187 state decisions — followed in 27 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
reviewedRuiz v. Morton (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Skidmore v. Swift & Co. · Griggs v. Duke Power Co. · Dandridge v. Williams · Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation Same · Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission
Cited together with Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Udall v. Tallman · Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe · Skidmore v. Swift & Co. · United States Accardi v. Shaughnessy
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 2,853 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The power of an administrative agency to administer a congressionally created ... program necessarily requires the formulation of policy and the making of rules to fill any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by Congress.”
59 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Where the rights of individuals are affected, it is incumbent upon agencies to follow their own procedures.”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“affecting individual rights and obligations.”
18 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.