Finnegan v. Matthews’s Empirical Analysis
641 F.2d 1340 · 1981
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 12 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 77 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2011 · most notably Heckler v. Lopez a-145 (1983), Murray v. Heckler (1983)
20 federal appellate · 12 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. § 1381 (§ 1601 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 1382C (§ 1614 of the Social Security Act of 1935) · 42 U.S.C. § 1383 (§ 1631 of the Social Security Act of 1935)
Relies on National Labor Relations Board v. Brown · Johnson v. Mathews · Ryan v. Shea · Usery v. First National Bank of Arizona
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 77 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The sole function of a grandfather clause is to prevent the harsh and often unfair operation of a statutory change. In the case at bar, the statutory revision threatened to deprive individuals of the continued right to receive disability benefits. The unfairness which could have resulted from the statutory change — the undesired potential side effect of the new disability program — would have been the discontinuance of benefits to former recipients prompted solely by a change in the rules of the game and undertaken in the absence of any improvement in their disabling condition. This harsh side effect was averted through the inclusion of the grandfather clause____ [T]he grandfather clause was designed to qualify automatically those included within its coverage for SSI benefits, and correlatively, to exempt grandfatherees from the requirement of undergoing ‘initial determinations’ of eligibility by HEW. Therefore, benefits to a grandfatheree must not be terminated absent proof of a material improvement in his medical condition or of the commission of a clear and specific error during the prior state determination.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(E) Notwithstanding the provisions of sub-paragraphs of (A) through (D), an individual shall be considered to be disabled for the purposes of this subchapter if he was permanently and totally disabled as defined under a State plan approved under subchapter XIV or XVI of this chapter as in effect for October 1972 and received aid under such plan (on the basis of disability) for December 1973 (and for at least one month prior to July 1973), so long as he is continuously disabled as so defined. (Emphasis added).”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The best indicator of what statutory words mean is what they say.”
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.