Bowen v. Owens’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
89 federal appellate · 15 district · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 178 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2018 · most notably Bowen v. Gilliard (1987), Lyng v. International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, & Agricultural Implement Workers (1988)
89 federal appellate · 15 district · 16 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.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1252 · 42 U.S.C. § 402 (§ 202 of the Social Security Act of 1935)
Relies on Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. · Flemming v. Nestor · United States Railroad Retirement Board v. Fritz · Schweiker v. Wilson · Reading Co. v. Schweitzer
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 178 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[g]overnmental decisions to spend money [Social Security funds] to improve the general public welfare in one way and not in another are 'not confided to the courts. The discretion belongs to Congress, unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment.'”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] legislature 'may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phrase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind.'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a patently arbitrary classification, utterly lacking in rational justification.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Tusson v. Bowen · Mitchell v. Apfel
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.