Allen v. McCurry’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2,617 federal appellate · 1,571 district · 618 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9,824 later decisions (98 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Heck v. Humphrey (1994), District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman (1983)
2,617 federal appellate · 1,571 district · 618 state decisions — followed in 43 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
reviewedMcCurry v. Allen (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Erie Co v. Tompkins · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Younger v. Harris · Wolff v. McDonnell
Cited together with Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education · Kremer v. Chemical Construction Corp. · Montana v. United States · Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore · Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation
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 9,824 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action.”
212 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Congress has specifically required all federal courts to give preclusive effect to state-court judgments whenever the courts of the State from which the judgments emerged would do so.”
141 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) the precise issue raised in the present case must have been raised and actually litigated in the prior proceeding; (2) determination of the issue must have been necessary to the outcome of the prior proceeding; (3) the prior proceeding must have resulted in a final judgment on the merits; and (4) the party against whom estoppel is sought must have had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the prior proceeding.”
79 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.