Davis v. Passman’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
1,254 federal appellate · 559 district · 237 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,566 later decisions (65 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment (1998)
1,254 federal appellate · 559 district · 237 state decisions — followed in 34 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
reviewedDavis v. Passman (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 78A (§ 1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 2 U.S.C. § 92 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 717 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 706 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 45 U.S.C. § 152 (Railway Labor Act)
Relies on Scheuer v. Rhodes · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Warth v. Seldin · Younger v. Harris · Baker v. Carr
Cited together with Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Carlson v. Green · Bush v. Lucas · Butz v. Economou · Harlow v. Fitzgerald
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 3,566 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress.”
38 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[T]he class of those litigants who allege that their own constitutional rights have been violated, and who at the same time have no effective means other than the judiciary to enforce these rights, must be able to invoke the existing jurisdiction of the courts for the protection of their justiciable constitutional rights.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a member of the class of litigants that may, as a matter of law, appropriately invoke the power of the court”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.