Brock v. Pierce County’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
346 federal appellate · 115 district · 60 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 864 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007), United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property (1993)
346 federal appellate · 115 district · 60 state decisions — followed in 16 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
reviewedPierce County v. United States (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp · Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. · Mohasco Corp. v. Silver · Guaranty Trust Co of New York v. United States · Batson v. Kentucky
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 864 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“would be most reluctant to conclude that every failure of an agency to observe a procedural requirement voids subsequent agency action, especially when important public rights are at stake.”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage“compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the mere use of the word 'shall' in [29 U.S.C. Sec. 816(b) ], standing alone, [was] not enough to remove the Secretary's power to act after 120 days.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.