West v. Conrail’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
222 federal appellate · 62 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 526 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2023 · most notably Vess v. Ciba-Geigy Corp. USA (2003), Henderson v. United States (1996)
222 federal appellate · 62 district · 18 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
reviewedWest v. Conrail (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Wilson v. Garcia · DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters · Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY v. Tomanio · Walker v. Armco Steel Corp. · Nantahala Power & Light Co. v. Thornburg
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 526 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A civil action is commenced by filing a complaint with the court.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage“[Wje now hold that when the underlying cause of action is based on federal law and the absence of an express federal statute of limitations makes it necessary to borrow a limitations period from another statute, the action is not barred if it has been “commenced” in compliance with Rule 3 within the borrowed period.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Inevitably our resolution of cases or controversies requires us to close interstices in federal law from time to time, but when it is necessary for us to borrow a statute of limitations for a federal cause of action, we borrow no more than necessary.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.