Rendell-Baker v. Kohn’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
766 federal appellate · 413 district · 226 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,817 later decisions (37 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. (1982), West v. Atkins (1988)
766 federal appellate · 413 district · 226 state decisions — followed in 33 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
reviewedRendell-Baker v. Kohn (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. · Wisconsin v. Yoder
Cited together with Blum v. Yaretsky · Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co. · Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. · Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority · Flagg Brothers Inc v. Brooks J Lefkowitz
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 2,817 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a State normally can be held responsible for a private decision only when it has exercised coercive power or has provided such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice must in law be deemed to be that of the State.”
60 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the State.”
38 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
27 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.