Bowen v. Galbreath’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
35 federal appellate · 16 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 131 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Gisbrecht v. Barnhart (2002), Wells v. Bowen (1988)
35 federal appellate · 16 district · 2 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
reviewedGalbreath v. Bowen (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Liegl v. Webb · Celebrezze v. Sparks · Reid v. Heckler · Motley v. Heckler
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 131 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“provides old-age, survivor, and disability benefits to insured individuals irrespective of financial need.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]henever a court renders a judgment favorable to a claimant under this subchapter who is represented before the court by an attorney, the court may ... allow as part of its judgment a reasonable fee for such representation, not in excess of 25 percent of the total of the past-due benefits to which the claimant is entitled by reason of such judgment.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Secretary [of Health and Human Services]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wick v. Brown
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.