Neitzke v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
2,234 federal appellate · 1,392 district · 247 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10,107 later decisions (32 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly (2007), Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009)
2,234 federal appellate · 1,392 district · 247 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Anders v. California · Conley v. Gibson · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Estelle v. Gamble · Haines v. Kerner
Cited together with Denton v. Hernandez · Haines v. Kerner · Estelle v. Gamble · Conley v. Gibson · Wolff v. McDonnell
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 10,107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact.”
183 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“based on an indisputably meritless legal theory,”
132 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“This procedure [for dismissal], operating on the assumption that the factual allegations in the complaint are true, streamlines litigation by dispensing with needless discovery and fact finding. Nothing in Rule 12(b)(6) confines its sweep to claims of law which are obviously insupportable. On the contrary, if as a matter of law “it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts ... a claim must be dismissed, without regard to whether it is based on outlandish legal theory.... What Rule 12(b)(6) does not countenance are dismissals based on a judge’s disbelief of a complaint’s factual allegations.””
74 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.