Hernandez v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
403 federal appellate · 112 district · 143 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,310 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith (1990), City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
403 federal appellate · 112 district · 143 state decisions — followed in 27 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
reviewedHernandez v. Commissioner (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 170 · 26 U.S.C. § 501
Relies on McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Lemon v. Kurtzman · Wisconsin v. Yoder · Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York · Widmar v. Vincent
Cited together with Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith · Wisconsin v. Yoder · Sherbert v. Verner · Lemon v. Kurtzman · Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division
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 1,310 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is not within the judicial ken to question the centrality of particular beliefs or practices to a faith, or the validity of particular litigants' interpretations of those creeds.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[t]he free exercise inquiry asks whether government has placed a substantial burden on the observation of a central religious belief or practice and, if so, whether a compelling governmental interest justifies the burden.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“when it is claimed that a denominational preference exists, the initial inquiry is whether the law facially differentiates among religions.”
10 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.