Smith v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
850 F.2d 242 · 1988
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently November 2020 · most notably Rickel v. Commissioner (1990), Heasley v. Commissioner (1992)
28 federal appellate · 1 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 26 U.S.C. § 7430 · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford County, Inc. · Schweiker v. Hansen · Powell v. Commissioner · United States v. Lane
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 61 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The change [of language from 'unreasonable' to 'not substantially justified'] apparently came about as part of an unsuccessful effort by the Senate Finance Committee to make section 7430 conform to the prevailing interpretation of the Equal Access to Justice Act ... by requiring the government to prove that its position was substantially justified.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The more difficult it is to appraise a building * * * the more leeway we must give the IRS before concluding that its position is 'unreasonable' or 'not substantially justified.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] closing agreement is interpreted under ordinary principles of contract law,”
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.