Solem v. Bartlett’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
205 federal appellate · 49 district · 96 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 487 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Hodel v. Irving (1987), South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe (1998)
205 federal appellate · 49 district · 96 state decisions — followed in 15 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
Relies on Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Montana v. United States · DeCoteau v. District County Court for the Tenth Judicial District · Lone Wolf v. Ethan a Hitchcock · Seymour v. Superintendent of Washington State Penitentiary
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 487 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[o]nce a block of land is set aside for an Indian reservation and no matter what happens to the title of individual plots within the area, the entire block retains its reservation status until Congress explicitly indicates otherwise.”
51 later decisions quote this exact passage“(a) all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and, including rights-of-way running through the reservation, (b) all dependent Indian communities within the borders of the United States whether within the original or subsequently acquired territory thereof, and whether within or without the limits of a state, and (c) all Indian allotments, the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished, including rights-of-way running through the same.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“considerable doubt as to what Congress meant in using these phrases ... [since] unallotted opened lands could be conceived of as being in the 'public domain' inasmuch as they were available for settlement.”
3 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.