United States v. James’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
369 federal appellate · 71 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 898 later decisions (24 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2022 · most notably Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca (1987), Salinas v. United States (1997)
369 federal appellate · 71 district · 12 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
reviewedJames v. United States (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Butz v. Economou · Consumer Product Safety Commission v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. · Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores · Dalehite v. United States
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 898 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When ... the terms of a statute [are] unambiguous, judicial inquiry is complete, except in rare and exceptional circumstances.”
23 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Nor do the terms ‘flood’ and ‘flood waters’ create any uncertainty in the context of accidents such as the ones at issue in these cases. The Act concerns flood control projects designed to carry floodwaters. It is thus clear from § 702c’s plain language that the terms ‘flood’ and ‘flood waters’ apply to all waters contained in or carried through a federal flood control project for purposes of or related to flood control, as well as to waters that such projects cannot control. Id. at 605, 478 U.S. 597 , 106 S.Ct. 3116 , 92 L.Ed.2d 483 (emphasis added).”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Congress clearly sought to ensure beyond doubt that sovereign immunity would protect the Government from “any” liability associated with flood control. As the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit explained three decades ago in National Mfg., § 702c’s language “safeguarded the United States against liability of any kind for damage from or by floods or flood waters in the broadest and most emphatic language.””
18 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.