Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly’s Empirical Analysis
2001
Citation profile
266 federal appellate · 127 district · 169 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 967 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), McConnell United States Senator et al. v. Federal Election Commission et al. (2003)
266 federal appellate · 127 district · 169 state decisions — followed in 24 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
reviewedConsolidated Cigar Corp. v. Reilly (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1331 (Sherman Antitrust Act) · 15 U.S.C. § 1333 (Robinson-Patman Act of 1936) · 15 U.S.C. § 1334 (Sherman Antitrust Act) · 15 U.S.C. § 1335 (Sherman Antitrust Act) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on United States v. O'Brien · Roth v. United States · United States v. Lopez · Ward v. Rock Against Racism · Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp.
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 967 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““is a ‘fit’ between the legislature’s ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends,” a[“]fit that is not necessarily perfect, but reasonable; that represents not necessarily the single best disposition but one whose scope is ‘in proportion to the interest served,’ that employs not necessarily the least restrictive means but ... a means narrowly tailored to achieve the desired objective.””
9 later decisions quote this exact passage“permitted litigants to justify speech restrictions by reference to studies and anecdotes,”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“by implication because of a conflict with a congressional enactment.”
9 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.