Mathews v. Lucas’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
320 federal appellate · 121 district · 274 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,223 later decisions (104 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably City of Cleburne Texas v. Cleburne Living Center (1985), Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co. (1982)
320 federal appellate · 121 district · 274 state decisions — followed in 36 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1252 · 42 U.S.C. § 402 (§ 202 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 405 (§ 205 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 408 (§ 208 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 416 (§ 216 of the Social Security Act of 1935)
Relies on Stanley v. Illinois · Dandridge v. Williams · San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez · Weinberger v. Salfi · Roth v. United States
Cited together with Trimble v. Gordon · Jimenez v. Weinberger · Dandridge v. Williams · Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. · Lalli v. Lalli
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 1,223 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Habit, rather than analysis, makes it seem acceptable and natural to distinguish between male and female, alien and citizen, legitimate and illegitimate; for too much of our history there was the same inertia in distinguishing between black and white.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“if the father had acknowledged the child in writing, had been ordered by a court to contribute to the child's support, had been judicially decreed to be the child's father, or is shown by other evidence satisfactory to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to be the child's father and was living with or contributing to the support of the child.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“insured individual is shown by evidence satisfactory to the Secretary to have been the father of the applicant, and such insured individual was living with or contributing to the support of the applicant at the time such insured individual died.”
7 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.