Hearn v. Rhay’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 40 district · 96 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 255 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Mead Data Central, Inc. v. United States Department of Air Force (1977), United States v. Bilzerian (1991)
20 federal appellate · 40 district · 96 state decisions — followed in 30 states
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 Scheuer v. Rhodes · Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Hickman v. Taylor · Pierson v. Ray · Wood v. Strickland
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 255 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) assertion of the privilege was a result of some affirmative act, such as filing suit, by the asserting party; (2) through this affirmative act, the asserting party put the protected information at issue by making it relevant to the case; and (3) application of the privilege would have denied the opposing party access to information vital to his defense.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage“[I]n civil actions and proceedings, with respect to an element of a claim or defense as to which State law supplies the rule of decision, the privilege of a witness ... shall be determined in accordance with State law.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“one result of asserting the privilege has been to deprive plaintiff of information necessary to 'defend' against defendants' affirmative defense, for the protected information is also germane to plaintiff's burden of proving malice or unreasonable disregard of his clearly established constitutional rights.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Johnston v. Comm'r
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.