Bob Jones University v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
570 federal appellate · 104 district · 198 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,582 later decisions (93 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2024 · most notably Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of United States Inc v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Consumer Alert (1983), Allen v. Wright (1984)
570 federal appellate · 104 district · 198 state decisions — followed in 29 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
reviewedBob Jones University v. United States (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 170 · 26 U.S.C. § 501 · 26 U.S.C. § 7421 · 26 U.S.C. § 7805 · 42 U.S.C. § 1971 (Civil Rights Act of 1957) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000C · 42 U.S.C. § 3601 (§ 801 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968))
Relies on Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Washington v. Davis · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Wisconsin v. Yoder
Cited together with Sherbert v. Verner · Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · United States v. Lee · Wisconsin v. Yoder · Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division
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 1,582 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t is a well-established canon of statutory construction that a court should go beyond the literal language of a statute if reliance on that language would defeat the plain purpose of the statute”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[c]haritable exemptions are justified on the basis that the exempt entity confers a public benefit--a benefit which the society or the community may not itself choose or be able to provide, or which supplements and advances the work of public institutions already supported by tax revenues.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'take in connection with it the whole statute ... and the objects and policy of the law' ") (quoting Brown v. Duchesne, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 183, 194, 15 L.Ed. 595 (1857)). A structure "suitable for use as a personal residence”
9 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.