Sierra Club v. Abston Construction Co.’s Empirical Analysis
620 F.2d 41 · 1980
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 6 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 69 later decisions — most recently August 2020 · most notably Avoyelles Sportsmen's League, Inc. v. Marsh (1983), National Wildlife Federation v. Gorsuch (1982)
31 federal appellate · 6 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
Relies on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Train · United States v. Earth Sciences, Inc. · Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Costle · Appalachian Power Company v. Russell E. Train, as Administrator Environmental Protection Agency, Alabama Power Company, Intervenors
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 69 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[g]ravity ... resulting in a discharge into a navigable body of water, may be part of a point source discharge if the [polluter] at least initially collected or channeled the water and other materials”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to any ... container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, or vessel ... from which pollutants are or may be discharged....”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“fail[ed] because of flaws in the construction or inadequate size to handle the fluids utilized, with resulting discharge, ... the escape of liquid from the confined system [was] from a point source.”
5 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.