Melvin v. Doe’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
107 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 111 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably 159 Cal. App. 4th 1154 - Krinsky v. Doe 6 (2008), Vaccone v. Syken (2006)
107 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
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Schneider v. State · Terminiello v. Chicago
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 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A collateral order is an order separable from and collateral to the main cause of action where the right involved is too important to be denied review and the question presented is such that if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, the claim will be irreparably lost.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he collateral order doctrine is a specialized practical application of the general rule that only final orders are ap-pealable as of right. Thus, Rule 313 must be interpreted narrowly, and the requirements for an appealable collateral order remain stringent in order to prevent undue corrosion of the final order rule.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he court-ordered disclosure of [appellants’ identities presents a significant possibility of trespass upon their First Amendment rights. There is no question that generally, the constitutional right to anonymous free speech is a right deeply rooted in public policy that goes beyond this particular litigation, and that it falls within the class of rights that are too important to be denied review. Finally, it is clear that once [appellants’ identities are disclosed, their First Amendment claim is irreparably lost as there are no means by which to later cure such disclosure.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.