McDaniel v. Paty’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
165 federal appellate · 31 district · 105 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 537 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2024 · most notably Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith (1990), Bender v. Williamsport Area School District (1986)
165 federal appellate · 31 district · 105 state decisions — followed in 20 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Lemon v. Kurtzman · Wisconsin v. Yoder
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 537 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Establishment Clause does not license government to treat religion and those who teach or practice it, simply by virtue of their status as such, as subversive of American ideals and therefore subject to unique disabilities.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[T]he right to the free exercise of religion unquestionably encompasses the right to preach, proselyte, and perform other similar religious functions....”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“categorically prohibits government from regulating, prohibiting, or rewarding religious beliefs as such.”
4 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.