Sullivan v. Finkelstein’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
233 federal appellate · 90 district · 43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 877 later decisions (36 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Food & Drug Administration v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000), District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
233 federal appellate · 90 district · 43 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
reviewedFinkelstein v. Bowen (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · United States v. United Mine Workers of America · Bowen v. Yuckert · Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. MacKey · Heckler v. Campbell
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 877 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The court may, on motion of the [Commissioner] made for good cause shown before [she] files [her] answer, remand the case to the [Commissioner] for further action by the [Commissioner], and it may at any time order additional evidence to be taken before the [Commissioner], but only upon a showing that there is new evidence which is material and that there is good cause for the failure to incorporate such evidence into the record in a prior proceeding....”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“should the Secretary on remand undertake the inquiry mandated by the District Court and award benefits, there would be grave doubt, as the Court of Appeals recognized, whether he could appeal his own order.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Secretary, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing.”
10 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.