Central Intelligence Agency v. Sims’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
281 federal appellate · 342 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 969 later decisions (27 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2024 · most notably United States Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (1989), Webster v. Doe (1988)
281 federal appellate · 342 district · 7 state decisions
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
reviewedSims v. Central Intelligence Agency (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 50 U.S.C. § 403 (§ 102 of the National Security Act of 1947) · 50 U.S.C. § 403G (Servicemembers Civil Relief Act) · 50 U.S.C. § 431 (§ 701 of the National Security Act of 1947) · 5 U.S.C. § 552 (Freedom of Information Act)
Relies on Florida Power & Light Co. v. Lorion · Environmental Protection Agency v. Mink · National Labor Relations Board v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co. · Garcia v. United States · Haig v. Agee
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 969 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(b) [The general FOIA disclosure requirement] does not apply to matters that are— (3) specifically exempted from disclosure by statute (other than section 552(b) of this title), provided that such statute ... (B) establishes particular criteria for withholding or refers to particular types of matters to be withheld; (emphasis added).”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage“protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage“reasons ... too obvious to call for enlarged discussion,”
9 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.