Smith v.’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
186 federal appellate · 66 district · 60 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 559 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2024 · most notably Lance v. Dennis (2006), Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight (1984)
186 federal appellate · 66 district · 60 state decisions — followed in 13 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 Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc. · Shelton v. Tucker · Garrison v. State of Louisiana
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 559 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the First Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize the association and bargain with it.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The First Amendment ... protects the right of associations to engage in advocacy on behalf of their members.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The First Amendment right to associate and to advocate provides no guarantee that a speech will persuade or that advocacy will be effective.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.