Shaffer v. Heitner’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
788 federal appellate · 649 district · 2,338 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,588 later decisions (89 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Burger King Corporation v. Rudzewicz (1985), World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson (1980)
788 federal appellate · 649 district · 2,338 state decisions — followed in 49 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 International Shoe Co. v. Washington · Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. · Hanson v. Denckla · Gulf Oil Corporation v. Gilbert · Fuentes v. Shevin
Cited together with International Shoe Co. v. Washington · World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson · Hanson v. Denckla · Burger King Corporation v. Rudzewicz · Helicopteros Nacionales De Colombia, S. A. v. Hall
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 5,588 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“fair warning that a particular activity may subject [them] to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign,”
199 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.”
162 later decisions quote this exact passage“it is essential in each case that there be some act by which the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.”
57 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.