Waters v. Thornburgh’s Empirical Analysis
888 F.2d 870 · 1989
Citation profile
21 federal appellate · 17 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Doe v. Chao Secretary of Labor (2004), Becker v. Tenenbaum-Hill Associates, Inc. (1990)
21 federal appellate · 17 district ·
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 28 U.S.C. § 1292 · 28 U.S.C. § 2106 · 5 U.S.C. § 552A (§ 3 of the Privacy Act of 1974)
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Gregory Lumber Co. v. United States · Morrison v. Olson · Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Martin Exploration Management Co.
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“an act committed 'without grounds for believing it to be lawful, or by flagrantly disregarding others' rights under the Act.'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he section was designed to “discourage the collection of personal information from third party sources and therefore to encourage the accuracy of Federal data gathering. * * * The Act is fundamentally concerned with privacy. It supports “the principle that an individual should to the greatest extent possible be in control of information about him which is given to the government ... a principle designed to insure fairness in information collection which should be instituted wherever possible.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[e]ach agency that maintains a system of records shall ... collect information to the greatest extent practicable directly from the subject individual when the information may result in adverse determinations about an individual's rights, benefits, and privileges under Federal programs.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.