Hagans v. Lavine’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
1,836 federal appellate · 667 district · 227 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,743 later decisions (143 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Edelman v. Jordan (1974)
1,836 federal appellate · 667 district · 227 state decisions — followed in 30 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
reviewedCynthia Hagans v. George K. Wyman (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Younger v. Harris · Edelman v. Jordan · Baker v. Carr · Goldberg v. Kelly
Cited together with United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Bell v. Hood · Rosado v. Wyman · Siler v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad · Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority
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 4,743 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit,”
154 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]hen questions of jurisdiction have been passed on in prior decisions sub silentio, this Court has never considered itself bound when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““[t]o redress the deprivation, under color of any State law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States or by any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States . . .”
21 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.