Bennett v. Arkansas’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
58 federal appellate · 2 district · 111 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 240 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Washington State Department of Social & Health Services v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler (2003), Gean v. Hattaway (2003)
58 federal appellate · 2 district · 111 state decisions — followed in 22 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.
Relationships
Relies on Philpott v. Essex County Welfare Board · Wrenn v. Board of Directors · Edgar v. McVey Trucking Co. · Rose v. Rose
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 240 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right of any person to any future payment under this subehapter shall not be transferable or assignable, at law or in equity, and none of the moneys paid or payable or rights existing under this sub-ehapter shall be subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process, or to the operation of any bankruptcy or insolvency law.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Crawford v. Gould · Reed v. Taylor“unambiguously rules out any attempt to attach Social Security benefits.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the federal statutes contained an implied exception to the exemption from legal process when the state provides for the care and maintenance of a beneficiary of Social Security or veterans funds.”
5 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.