Wingo v. Wedding’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
309 federal appellate · 34 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 509 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Thomas v. Arn (1986), Blackledge v. Allison (1977)
309 federal appellate · 34 district · 15 state decisions
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
reviewedCarl James Wedding v. John W. Wingo (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Townsend v. Sain · Fay v. Noia · Brown v. Allen · Speiser v. Randall · United States v. Hayman
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 509 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““To experienced lawyers it is commonplace that the outcome of a lawsuit — and hence the vindication of legal rights — • depends more often on how the factfinder appraises the facts than on a disputed construction of a statute or interpretation of a line of precedents. Thus the procedures by which the facts of the case are determined assume an importance fully as great as the validity of the substantive rule of law to be applied.””
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““(b) Any district court of the United States, by the concurrence of a majority of all the judges of such district court, may establish rules pursuant to which any full-time United States magistrate, or, where there is no full-time magistrate reasonably available, any part-time magistrate specially designated by the court, may be assigned within the territorial jurisdiction of such court such additional duties as are not inconsistent witli the Constitution and laws of the United States. The additional duties authorized by rule may include, but are not restricted to— (1) service as a special master in an appropriate civil action, pursuant to the applicable provisions of this title and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States district courts; (2) assistance to a district judge in the conduct of pretrial or discovery proceedings in civil or criminal actions ; and (3) preliminary review of applications for posttrial relief made by individuals convicted of criminal offenses, and submission of a report and recommendations to facilitate the decision of the district judge having jurisdiction over the case as to whether there should be a hearing.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“to cull from the ever-growing workload of the U.S. district courts matters that are more desirably performed by a lower tier of judicial officers”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.