Smith v. Robinson’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
738 federal appellate · 392 district · 143 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,280 later decisions (55 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Patterson v. McLean Credit Union (1989), Honig v. Doe (1988)
738 federal appellate · 392 district · 143 state decisions — followed in 27 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
reviewedSmith v. Cumberland School Committee (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975) · 20 U.S.C. § 1401 · 20 U.S.C. § 1415 · 20 U.S.C. § 3441 · 29 U.S.C. § 794 · 29 U.S.C. § 794A · 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Hensley v. Eckerhart · Monroe v. Pape
Cited together with Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn. · Maine v. Thiboutot · Wright v. City of Roanoke Redevelopment & Housing Authority · Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District Bd of Ed Westchester County v. Rowley · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman
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 2,280 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'We do not lightly conclude that Congress intended to preclude reliance on § 1983 as a remedy' for the deprivation of a federally secured right.”
171 later decisions quote this exact passage“[U]nlike an independent equal protection claim, maintenance of an independent due process challenge to state procedures would not be inconsistent with the EHA’s comprehensive scheme____ [W]hile Congress apparently has determined that local and state agencies should not be burdened with attorney's fees to litigants who succeed, through resort to the procedures outlined in the EHA, in requiring those agencies to provide free schooling, there is no indication that agencies should be exempt from a fee award where plaintiffs have had to resort to judicial relief to force the agencies to provide them the process they were constitutionally due.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“unlike an independent equal protection claim, maintenance of an independent due process challenge to state procedures would not be inconsistent with the EHA's comprehensive scheme.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.