Christopher v. Smithkline Beecham Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
567 U.S. 142 · 2012
Citation profile
35 federal appellate · 20 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 194 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Kisor v. Wilkie (2019), 140 S. Ct. 1891 - Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of Cal. (2020)
35 federal appellate · 20 district · 10 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 353 (Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) · 29 U.S.C. § 202 · 29 U.S.C. § 203 · 29 U.S.C. § 213 · 29 U.S.C. § 216
Relies on Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Skidmore v. Swift & Co. · United States v. Mead Corp. · Auer v. Robbins · Heckler v. Chaney
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 194 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“reason to suspect that the [DEA's] interpretation does not reflect the agency's fair and considered judgment on the matter in question.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“defer[ence] to the agency's interpretation ... would seriously undermine the principle that agencies should provide regulated parties fair warning of the conduct a regulation prohibits or requires”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation[s].”
3 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.