United States v. Bestfoods’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
296 federal appellate · 348 district · 134 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,692 later decisions (12 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez (2007), Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson (2003)
296 federal appellate · 348 district · 134 state decisions — followed in 21 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 Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Bailey v. United States · Missouri v. Continential Insurance Cos. · Bibby v. United States · United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co.
Cited together with Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly · Ashcroft v. Iqbal · Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corporation
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 1,692 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“in response to the serious environmental and health risks posed by industrial pollution.”
57 later decisions quote this exact passage“an operator must manage, direct, or conduct operations specifically related to pollution, that is, operations having to do with the leakage or disposal of hazardous waste, or decisions about compliance with environmental regulations.”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`monitoring of the subsidiary's performance, supervision of the subsidiary's finance and capital budget decisions, and articulation of general policies and procedures[.]'”
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.