Herbert v. Lando’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
320 federal appellate · 193 district · 534 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,686 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), Calder v. Jones (1984)
320 federal appellate · 193 district · 534 state decisions — followed in 40 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
reviewedHerbert v. Lando (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Mapp v. Ohio · Hickman v. Taylor · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Roviaro v. United States
Cited together with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · St. Amant v. Thompson · Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts · Branzburg v. Hayes
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 1,686 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[e]videntiary privileges in litigation are not favored.”
102 later decisions quote this exact passage“Parties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim or defense of the party seeking discovery or to the claim or defense of any other party, including the existence, description, nature, custody, condition, and location of any books, documents, or other tangible things and the identity and location of persons having knowledge of any discoverable matter. The information sought need not be admissible at the trial if the information sought appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Shoen v. Shoen · Nester v. Poston“'of sufficient social importance to justify some incidental sacrifice of sources of facts needed in the administration of justice.'”
8 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.