Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance v. Knudson’s Empirical Analysis
2002
Citation profile
645 federal appellate · 393 district · 162 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,429 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila (2004), Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global Group, L. P. (2004)
645 federal appellate · 393 district · 162 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1441 · 29 U.S.C. § 1132 (§ 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 42 U.S.C. § 1396B (§ 1903 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 2000E (§ 701 of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) · 5 U.S.C. § 702
Relies on Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Bell v. Hood · Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody · William Marbury v. James Madison · Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance v. Russell
Cited together with Mertens v. Hewitt Associates · Varity Corporation v. Howe · Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance v. Russell · Sereboff v. Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Inc. · Firestone Tire and Rubber Company v. Bruch
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 2,429 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“where money or property identified as belonging in good conscience to the plaintiff could clearly be traced to particular funds or property in the defendant's possession.”
184 later decisions quote this exact passage“If, for example, a plaintiff is entitled to a constructive trust on a particular property held by the defendant, he may also recover profits produced by the defendant's use of that property, even if he cannot identify a particular res containing the profits sought to be recovered.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“those categories of relief that were typically available in equity (such as injunction, mandamus, and restitution, but not compensatory damages).”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.