Heckler v. Chaney’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
1,802 federal appellate · 868 district · 198 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,728 later decisions (85 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Doherty (1992), Whitmore v. Arkansas (1990)
1,802 federal appellate · 868 district · 198 state decisions — followed in 26 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
reviewedChaney v. Heckler (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe · Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of United States Inc v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Consumer Alert · Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Gregg v. Georgia · Vaca v. Sipes
Cited together with Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe · Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Webster v. Doe · Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of United States Inc v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Consumer Alert
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 4,728 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“an agency's decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed to an agency's absolute discretion”
184 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the statute is drawn so that a court would have no meaningful standard against which to judge the agency's exercise of discretion.”
126 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“agency action is committed to agency discretion by law.”
88 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.