Kassel v. Consolidated Freightways Corp. of Del.’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
167 federal appellate · 65 district · 99 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 617 later decisions (27 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc. (1985), Nordlinger v. Hahn (1992)
167 federal appellate · 65 district · 99 state decisions — followed in 22 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
reviewedConsolidated Freightways Corp. v. Kassel (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. · Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission · Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc. · Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia · Johnson v. Robison
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 617 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the incantation of a purpose to promote the public health or safety does not insulate a state law from Commerce Clause attack.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“`there is a residuum of power in the state to make laws governing matters of local concern which nevertheless in some measure affect interstate commerce or even, to some extent, regulate it.'”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage“decidedly confined view of the judicial role: 'We are not inclined "to second-guess the empirical judgments of lawmakers concerning the utility of legislation.”
7 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.