Jean v. Nelson’s Empirical Analysis
711 F.2d 1455 · 1983
Citation profile
25 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 101 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2023 · most notably Commissioner, Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Jean (1990), Jean v. Nelson (1985)
25 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 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 Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · Baker v. Carr · International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States · Bonner v. City of Prichard · Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.
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 101 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“akin to wandering lost in the Serbonian bog,”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Recognizing that legislative and administrative actions are rarely motivated by one purpose only, the Court held plaintiffs must establish that the challenged decision was at least motivated in part by a discriminatory purpose. Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266 [ 97 S.Ct. at 564 ]. See also Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 279 , 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2290 , 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979). Plaintiffs need not prove a discriminatory purpose was the primary, or dominant purpose, Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266 [ 97 S.Ct. at 564 ], but must show that the action taken was, at least in part, “because of,” and not merely “in spite of” its adverse effects upon an identifiable group, Feeney, supra, 442 U.S. at 279 & n. 24 [ 99 S.Ct. at 2296 & n. 24], The very nature of legislative and administrative action makes it difficult to ascertain the “intent” of the acting body. For that reason, in Arlington Heights the Supreme Court provided some examples of “circumstantial and direct evidence” that courts might properly consider in judging whether invidious discrimination permeated official action. First, there is evidence of “impact,” i.e. whether the challenged activity “bears more heavily on one race than another,” id. 429 U.S. at 266 [ 97 S.Ct. at 564 ], citing Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 241 [ 96 S.Ct. 2040, 2048 , 48 L.Ed.2d 597 ]. In cases where proof of impact alone is insufficient, where a stark pattern of discrimination is not evident, the courts should ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““It may be exercised by the Executive and the Senate through the execution of treaties, (citation omitted), through the legislative powers of Congress, (citation omitted), and in part by the Executive branch acting alone, as a function of its plenary authority over foreign relations.” See id.; United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537, 542 , 70 S.Ct. 309 , 94 L.Ed. 317 .”
1 later decision 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.