Metzl v. Leininger’s Empirical Analysis
57 F.3d 618 · 1995
Citation profile
30 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 60 later decisions — most recently July 2020 · most notably Nelson v. Miller (2009), William Books Michael Suetkamp v. City of Elkhart Indiana (2000)
30 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 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.
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corporation · Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks · Flast v. Cohen · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher
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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a law that promotes religion may nevertheless be upheld either because of the secular purposes that the law also serves or because the effect in promoting religion is too attenuated to worry about.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Building on Cammack, Illinois might have argued that the contemporary purpose of the Good Friday public school closing law is to provide a long spring weekend.... [However, t]he argument is no more than hinted at in the state’s brief ..., perhaps because its premise— that Illinois, like Hawaii, wants to create a long spring weekend in all its public schools — is false. Had Illinois made a forthright official announcement that the public schools shall be closed on the Friday before Easter in order to give students and teachers a three-day spring weekend, rather than to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we might have a different case. [W]e have left open the possibility that Illinois can accomplish much the same thing ... by officially adopting a “spring weekend” rationale for the law, in place of the governor’s proclamation of a state religious holiday....”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he First Amendment does not allow a state to make it easier for adherents of one faith to practice their religion than for adherents of another faith to practice their religion unless there is a secular justification for the difference in treatment.”
2 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.