Downs v. Westphal’s Empirical Analysis
78 F.3d 1252 · 1996
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Rosario-Diaz v. Gonzalez (1998), Bobby Long Jr v. Tom Steepro William Hartley Daniel Bodlovich (2000)
17 federal appellate · 3 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 District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman · Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. · National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc. · Homola v. McNamara · Jones v. Phipps
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“being a pro se litigant does not give a party unbridled license to disregard clearly communicated court orders,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Ruth Westphal and Michael Gulmetti claim that the default judgment entered against them by the Arizona court is invalid.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Downs v. Westphal“Joanne and Hugh Downs sued Ruth Westphal for defamation ... over ten years ago in Arizona state court.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Downs v. Westphal
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.