Western National Mutual Insurance v. Lennes’s Empirical Analysis
46 F.3d 813 · 1995
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably Valot v. Southeast Local School District Board of Education (1997), Whisman v. Rinehart (1997)
11 federal appellate · 3 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
Relies on Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc. · Fuentes v. Shevin · Blanchette v. Connecticut General Insurance Corporations · Allied Structural Steel Company v. Spannaus
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“right of court access cannot be impaired, either directly or indirectly.... Indirect impairment may include 'retaliatory action [taken] against an individual designed either to punish him for having exercised his constitutional right to seek judicial relief or to intimidate or chill his exercise of that right in the future'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. McReynolds v. May · 65 F.3d 172“depends on 'the extent to which the [parties'] reasonable contract expectations have been disrupted[,]'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) The first inquiry is whether the state law has, in fact, operated as a substantial impairment on pre-existing contractual relationships. If there is no substantial impairment of contractual relationships, the law does not violate the Contract Clause. If, however, the law does constitute a substantial impairment, the second part of the test is addressed: (2) The State must have a significant and legitimate public purpose behind the regulation. If there is no significant and legitimate public purpose, the state law is unconstitutional under the Contract Clause. If a significant and legitimate public purpose has been identified, the third part of the test is applied: (3) [A court] must determine whether the adjustment of the rights and responsibilities of contracting parties is based upon reasonable conditions and is of a character appropriate to the public purpose justifying the legislation’s adoption.”
1 later decision 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.