Papasan v. Allain’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
622 federal appellate · 2,422 district · 99 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7,142 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly (2007), Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009)
622 federal appellate · 2,422 district · 99 state decisions — followed in 21 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
reviewedPapasan v. United States (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Scheuer v. Rhodes · Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Edelman v. Jordan · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman
Cited together with Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly · Ashcroft v. Iqbal · Conley v. Gibson · Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Scheuer v. Rhodes
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 7,142 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.”
73 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“relief that serves directly to bring an end to a present violation of federal law is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment even though accompanied by a substantial ancillary effect on the state treasury.”
72 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
27 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.