Williams v. Vermont’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
63 federal appellate · 32 district · 128 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 305 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon (1985), Nordlinger v. Hahn (1992)
63 federal appellate · 32 district · 128 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.
Relationships
Relies on Dandridge v. Williams · San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez · Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. · Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Washington · Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co.
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 305 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"In the present case, residence at the time of purchase is a wholly arbitrary basis on which to distinguish among present Vermont registrants at least among those who used their cars elsewhere before coming to Vermont. Having registered a car in Vermont they are similarly situated for all relevant purposes. Each is a Vermont resident, using a car in Vermont, with an equal obligation to pay for the maintenance and improvement of Vermont's roads. The purposes of the statute would be identically served, and with an identical burden, by taxing each. The distinction between them bears no relation to the statutory purpose."”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage“An exemption such as that challenged here 'will be sustained if the legislature could have reasonably concluded that the challenged classification would promote a legitimate state purpose.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“If the classification has some 'reasonable basis,' it does not offend the Constitution simply because the classification 'is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.