United States v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
619 federal appellate · 627 district · 61 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,774 later decisions (45 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably United States v. Mitchell (1983), Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs (1991)
619 federal appellate · 627 district · 61 state decisions — followed in 14 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 Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Udall v. Tallman · United States v. Testan · United States v. Sherwood · Morton v. Mancari
Cited together with United States v. Testan · United States v. Sherwood · United States v. King · United States v. Mitchell · United States v. Nordic Village, Inc.
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 3,774 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A waiver of sovereign immunity 'cannot be implied but must be unequivocally expressed.'”
65 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The United States Court of Federal Claims shall have jurisdiction to render judgment upon any claim against the United States founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or any regulation of an executive department, or upon any express or implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort.”
56 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“)). A statute creates a right capable of grounding a claim for damages within the waiver of sovereign immunity if the statute "can be fairly interpreted as mandating compensation by the Federal Government for the damage sustained.”
11 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.