City of Boerne v. Flores’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
1,086 federal appellate · 438 district · 397 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,488 later decisions (60 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Board of Trustees of the University of Alabamas v. Patricia Garrett (2001), Dickerson v. United States (2000)
1,086 federal appellate · 438 district · 397 state decisions — followed in 37 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
reviewedFlores v. City of Boerne (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 2000B
Relies on Washington v. Davis · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida · Wisconsin v. Yoder · William Marbury v. James Madison
Cited together with Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith · Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida · Sherbert v. Verner · Board of Trustees of the University of Alabamas v. Patricia Garrett · Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer
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 3,488 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.”
276 later decisions quote this exact passage“Free exercise of religion protected (a) In general Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage“a positive grant of legislative power authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in determining whether and what legislation is needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.