Thomas v. Arn’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
1,159 federal appellate · 2,117 district · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11,412 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States v. Olano (1993), Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States (1988)
1,159 federal appellate · 2,117 district · 30 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
reviewedThomas v. Arn (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Barker v. Wingo · Cuyler v. Sullivan · Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. · Link v. Wabash Railroad
Cited together with Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · United States v. Walters · Wright v. Collins · Strickland v. Washington
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 11,412 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Any party that desires plenary consideration by the Article III judge of any issue need only ask. Moreover, while the statute does not require the judge to review an issue de novo if no objections are filed, it does not preclude further review by the district judge, sua sponte or at the request of a party, under a de novo or any other standard.”
42 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[a] judge of the court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made. A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate. The judge may also receive further evidence or recommit the matter to the magistrate with instructions.”
41 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“the district judge by failing to object and then appealing. Absent such a rule, any issue before the magistrate would be a proper subject for appellate review. This would either force the court of appeals to consider claims that were never reviewed by the district court, or force the district court to review every issue in every case, no matter how thorough the magistrate's analysis and even if both parties were satisfied with the magistrate's report. Either result would be an inefficient use of judicial resources. In short,”
34 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.