Anderson v. City of Bessemer City’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
11,261 federal appellate · 849 district · 1,238 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22,788 later decisions (135 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. (1986), Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
11,261 federal appellate · 849 district · 1,238 state decisions — followed in 44 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
reviewedAnderson v. City of Bessemer City (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 701 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Relies on United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · Wainwright v. Sykes · Wainwright v. Witt · Pullman-Standard v. Swint
Cited together with United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · Pullman-Standard v. Swint · McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · United States Postal Service Board of Governors v. Aikens
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 22,788 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”
1,756 later decisions quote this exact passage“shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous.”
77 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“conduct[ ] ... a de novo weighing of the evidence in the record.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. 65 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,372, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,530 Peggy M. Spicer v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Corrections, and Buckingham Correctional Center David Smith, in His Capacity as the Warden of Buckingham Correctional Center, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Corrections J.M. Perutelli, Captain, Peggy M. Spicer v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Corrections Buckingham Correctional Center David Smith, in His Capacity as the Warden of Buckingham Correctional Center, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Corrections J.M. Perutelli, Captain · 69 Fair empl.prac.cas. (Bna) 1255, 66 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 43,684 Peggy M. Spicer v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Corrections, and Buckingham Correctional Center David Smith, in His Capacity as the Warden of Buckingham Correctional Center, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Corrections J.M. Perutelli, Captain, Peggy M. Spicer v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Corrections Buckingham Correctional Center Buckingham Correctional Center David Smith, in His Capacity as the Warden of Buckingham Correctional Center, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Corrections J.M. Perutelli, Captain
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.