MacKey v. Montrym’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
199 federal appellate · 67 district · 846 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,405 later decisions (29 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc. (1981), South Dakota v. Neville (1983)
199 federal appellate · 67 district · 846 state decisions — followed in 46 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2281
Relies on Mathews v. Eldridge · Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. · Aguilar v. Texas · Stanley v. Illinois · Fuentes v. Shevin
Cited together with Mathews v. Eldridge · Dixon v. Love · Bell v. Burson · Goldberg v. Kelly · Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill
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 1,405 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the Due Process Clause has never been construed to require that the procedures used to guard against an erroneous deprivation of a protectible 'property' or 'liberty' interest be so comprehensive as to preclude any possibility of error.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he specific dictates of due process must be shaped by 'the risk of error inherent in the truth finding process as applied to the generality of cases' rather than the rare exceptions.”
12 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.