McCarthy v. Madigan’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
615 federal appellate · 433 district · 110 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,189 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Woodford v. Ngo (2006), V. C O Churner (2001)
615 federal appellate · 433 district · 110 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
reviewedMcCarthy v. Maddigan (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mathews v. Eldridge · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States · Turner v. Safley · Weinberger v. Salfi
Cited together with McKart v. United States · Weinberger v. Salfi · Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. · Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla. · V. C O Churner
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 2,189 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[E]xhaustion principles apply with special force when frequent and deliberate flouting of administrative processes could weaken an agency's effectiveness by encouraging disregard of its procedures.”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“an unreasonable or indefinite timeframe for administrative action”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“where Congress has not clearly required exhaustion, sound judicial discretion governs.”
30 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.