Callahan v. Woods’s Empirical Analysis
658 F.2d 679 · 1981
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 8 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla. (1987), Watts v. Florida International University (2007)
28 federal appellate · 8 district · 5 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. § 602 (§ 402 of the Social Security Act of 1935)
Relies on Wisconsin v. Yoder · Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same · Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division · United States v. Seeger · United States v. Ballard
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) The prisoner has the burden of showing that (a) His beliefs are sincerely held; the first amendment does not extend to so-called religions which are obviously “shams and absurdities” and whose members are lacking in religious sincerity. (b) The claim must be rooted in religious belief, not in purely secular or philosophical concerns; however, the court is not to inquire into the truth, validity or reasonableness of religious beliefs. (2) If the plaintiff successfully shows the above items, the Government then has the burden of showing that the prisoner’s alleged religious rights have been restricted for legitimate reasons such as prison security and rehabilitation.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““So long as one’s faith is religiously based at the time it is asserted, it should not matter, for constitutional purposes, whether the faith derived from revelation, study, upbringing, gradual evolution or some source that appears entirely incomprehensible.” (Our emphasis)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Since having a social security number in this society has become a prerequisite for so many of the society’s benefits (both from the public and private sectors), no great leap of imagination is necessary to travel from the exegesis of Revelation to the plaintiffs’ belief that such numbers could function, if the state were to become too powerful, like the mark of the Antichrist spoken of in the biblical text. With the history and literature marshalled by plaintiffs to support their contention, their belief must be characterized as religious for purposes of this case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.