Chappell v. Wallace’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
860 federal appellate · 330 district · 82 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,246 later decisions (39 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Schweiker v. Chilicky (1988), Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko (2001)
860 federal appellate · 330 district · 82 state decisions — followed in 19 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
reviewedWallace v. Chappell (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Feres v. United States · Parker v. Levy · Carlson v. Green · Frontiero v. Richardson
Cited together with Feres v. United States · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · United States v. Stanley · Orloff v. Willoughby · Bush v. Lucas
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 2,246 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Civilian courts must, at the very least, hesitate long before entertaining a suit which asks the court to tamper with the established relationship between enlisted military personnel and their superior officers; that relationship is at the heart of the necessarily unique structure of the military establishment.”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he special nature of military life--the need for unhesitating and decisive action by military officers and equally disciplined responses by enlisted personnel--would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers to personal liability at the hands of those they are charged to command.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Board [for Correction of Military Records] decisions are subject to judicial review and can be set aside if they are arbitrary, capricious, or not based on substantial evidence.”
23 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.