Dolan v. United States Postal Service’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
262 federal appellate · 58 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 713 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Ricci v. DeStefano (2009), Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons (2008)
262 federal appellate · 58 district · 55 state decisions
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
reviewedDolan v. United States Postal Service (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1696 · 28 U.S.C. § 1346 (Federal Tort Claims Act) · 28 U.S.C. § 2680 · 39 U.S.C. § 101 (Air Carriage of International Mail Act) · 39 U.S.C. § 2603 · 39 U.S.C. § 401
Relies on Federal Deposit Insurance v. Meyer · Dalehite v. United States · United States v. Nordic Village, Inc. · Gustafson v. Alloyd Co. · Lane v. Pena Secretary of Transportation
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 713 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]nterpretation of a word or phrase depends upon reading the whole statutory text....”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“claims against the United States, for money damages, ... for ... personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government ..., under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter”
4 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.