Murphy v. Hunt’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
965 federal appellate · 292 district · 320 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,703 later decisions (36 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District Bd of Ed Westchester County v. Rowley (1982), Spencer v. Kemna (1998)
965 federal appellate · 292 district · 320 state decisions — followed in 28 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Broadrick v. Oklahoma · Gerstein v. Pugh · Sibron v. State of New York Peters · Powell v. McCormack · Pennsylvania v. Mimms
Cited together with Weinstein v. Bradford · Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · Honig v. Doe · City of Los Angeles v. Lyons · United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty
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 2,703 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“capable of repetition, yet evading review.”
146 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.'”
72 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a mere physical or theoretical possibility”
64 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.