Buckhannon Board and Care Home Incs v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’s Empirical Analysis
2001
Citation profile
1,259 federal appellate · 786 district · 366 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,420 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries (2008), Roell v. Withrow (2003)
1,259 federal appellate · 786 district · 366 state decisions — followed in 36 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 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (Comprehensive Thrift and Bank Fraud Prosecution and Taxpayer Recovery Act of 1990) · 18 U.S.C. § 1864 · 42 U.S.C. § 12101 (§ 2 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) · 42 U.S.C. § 12205 (§ 505 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988 · 42 U.S.C. § 3601 (§ 801 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968)) · 42 U.S.C. § 3613 (§ 813 of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968)) · 5 U.S.C. § 1221
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Edelman v. Jordan · Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society · Friends of the Earth Incorporateds v. Laidlaw Environmental Services Inc
Cited together with Hensley v. Eckerhart · Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School District · Farrar v. Hobby · Hewitt v. Helms · Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society
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 4,420 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties.”
183 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A defendant's voluntary change in conduct, although perhaps accomplishing what the plaintiff sought to achieve by the lawsuit, lacks the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change.”
55 later decisions quote this exact passage“a plaintiff is a `prevailing party' if it achieves the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct.”
48 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.