Swearson v. Meyers’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently July 2005
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Younger v. Harris · Monroe v. Pape · Buckley v. Valeo · Elrod v. Burns · Grayned v. City of Rockford
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * [T]he standards must be more than mere criteria or guidelines; they must be complete in and of themselves, and leave no factors to be assessed, judgments to be made, or discretion to be exercised by the appropriate licensing official. In other words, the decision to grant or deny the license application must be virtually a ministerial one.” Swearson v. Meyers, supra, 455 F.Supp. at 91 (emphasis in original).”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It will be noted, however, that the Act requires an application to the secretary of the public welfare council of the State; that he is empowered to determine whether the cause is a religious one, and that the issue of a certificate depends upon his affirmative action. If he finds that the cause is not that of religion, to solicit for it becomes a crime. He is not to issue a certificate as a matter of course. His decision to issue or refuse it involves appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion. He is authorized to withhold his approval if he determines that the cause is not a religious one. Such a censorship of religion as the means of determining its right to survive is a denial of liberty protected by the First Amendment and included in the liberty which is within the protection of the Fourteenth.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Walker v. Wegner
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.