Hudson Corpus · Data brief 001

The Most-Cited Cases in Iowa

Every citation Iowa's appellate courts have made to their own decisions, counted — and the fifty cases at the top of the list.

As of 13 Aug 2026

475,375

citations counted, opinion to opinion

76,725

appellate decisions, published and unpublished

1,502

opinions cite In re P.L., the most-cited case in Iowa law

Which cases do Iowa's courts actually cite? Not the ones most lawyers would guess. We counted every citation Iowa's appellate courts have made to their own past decisions, 475,375 of them across 76,725 decisions, published and unpublished, and ranked the cases by how many opinions cite them. These are the fifty at the top.

The list is not a hall of fame. 26 of the fifty are family & juvenile cases, most of them appeals from the termination of parental rights; 21 are criminal & postconviction; 3 are civil & procedure. The most-cited case in Iowa law is In re P.L., a 2010 termination decision that 1,502 later opinions cite. Varnum v. Brien, the most consequential decision the Iowa Supreme Court has issued this century, has been cited 143 times and does not make the list.

That is not a paradox. Courts cite what they use, and what an appellate opinion uses most is the standard of review, the framework, the elements of the test: the paragraph it needs before it can reach the merits. A case earns a place on this list by being the cleanest statement of a rule that comes up every week, not by settling a great question once. Frequently cited is not the same as important.

The curve behind the list is steep. Of the 76,725 decisions, 29,088, 38%, have never been cited by any later Iowa opinion. 238 have been cited a hundred times or more, 12 have reached five hundred, and 6 have passed a thousand. The fifty below are 0.065 percent of the corpus and receive one of every 21 citations Iowa's appellate courts have ever made.

Figure 1 — The fiftyThe fifty most-cited cases in Iowa law, sized by the number of opinions that cite them. Hover or tab to any bubble for its full caption, year, court and count; the complete list is in Table 1.

Two things stand out once the fifty are laid side by side. The first is how new the list is: 41 of the fifty were decided in 2000 or later, and the oldest case on it, In re Marriage of Winter, dates only to 1974. Iowa's working canon is a recent construction, and it is still being built; the newest member, In re L.T., is from 2019. The second is where it comes from: 46 of the fifty are Iowa Supreme Court decisions; only 4 come from the Court of Appeals.

Table 1 — The fifty

The complete list

Every case in Figure 1, ranked by the number of distinct Iowa appellate opinions that cite it. The table is the record; the chart is the picture of it.

#	Case	Year	Court	Citing opinions	Practice area
1	In re P.L.	2010	Iowa Supreme Court	1,502	Family & juvenile
2	In re D.W. In The Interest Of D.W., Minor Child, A.M.W., Mother	2010	Iowa Supreme Court	1,325	Family & juvenile
3	Meier v. Senecaut Meier v. SENECAUT III	2002	Iowa Supreme Court	1,234	Civil & procedure
4	In re C.B. In the Interest of C.B.	2000	Iowa Supreme Court	1,124	Family & juvenile
5	In re A.M. In the Interest of A.M., Minor Child, A.M., Father	2014	Iowa Supreme Court	1,120	Family & juvenile
6	In re A.B. In the Interest of A.B. & S.B., Minor Children, S.B., Father	2012	Iowa Supreme Court	1,049	Family & juvenile
7	In re J.E. In The Interest Of J.e., Minor Child, R.e., Mother Vs. State Of Iowa	2006	Iowa Supreme Court	805	Family & juvenile
8	State v. Formaro	2002	Iowa Supreme Court	733	Criminal & postconviction
9	In re M.W. In the Interest of M.W. and Z.W., Minor Children, R.W., Mother	2016	Iowa Supreme Court	680	Family & juvenile
10	Ledezma v. State	2001	Iowa Supreme Court	645	Criminal & postconviction
11	State v. Straw	2006	Iowa Supreme Court	596	Criminal & postconviction
12	In re Marriage of Hansen In Re the Marriage of Hansen	2007	Iowa Supreme Court	591	Family & juvenile
13	Lamasters v. State Lynn G. Lamasters Vs. State of Iowa	2012	Iowa Supreme Court	480	Criminal & postconviction
14	State v. Clay State of Iowa v. Allen Bradley Clay	2012	Iowa Supreme Court	473	Criminal & postconviction
15	In re Marriage of Winter In Re the Marriage of Winter	1974	Iowa Supreme Court	396	Family & juvenile
16	In re Marriage of McDermott In RE the Marriage of Rachel A. McDermott and Stephen J. McDermott Upon the Petition of Rachel A. McDermott	2013	Iowa Supreme Court	394	Family & juvenile
17	In re H.S. In the Interest of H.S. And S.N., Minor Children, V.R., Mother	2011	Iowa Supreme Court	380	Family & juvenile
18	State v. Maxwell	2008	Iowa Supreme Court	372	Criminal & postconviction
19	State v. Graves	2003	Iowa Supreme Court	361	Criminal & postconviction
20	In re J.S. In the Interest of J.S. & N.S., Minor Children, A.S., Mother	2014	Iowa Supreme Court	349	Family & juvenile
21	State v. Bruegger	2009	Iowa Supreme Court	332	Criminal & postconviction
22	In re Marriage of Sullins In Re the Marriage of Sullins	2006	Iowa Supreme Court	331	Family & juvenile
23	In re Marriage of Okland In Re the Marriage of Okland	2005	Iowa Supreme Court	326	Family & juvenile
24	State v. Sanford State of Iowa v. Dontay Dakwon Sanford	2012	Iowa Supreme Court	322	Criminal & postconviction
25	Alcala v. Marriott Int'l Brenda J. Alcala v. Marriott International, Inc. and Courtyard Management Corporation D/B/A Quad Cities Courtyard by Marriott	2016	Iowa Supreme Court	315	Civil & procedure
26	Hyler v. Garner	1996	Iowa Supreme Court	296	Civil & procedure
27	In re Marriage of Frederici In Re the Marriage of Frederici	1983	Iowa Supreme Court	288	Family & juvenile
28	In re L.T. In the Interest of L.T., A.T., and D.T., Minor Children	2019	Iowa Supreme Court	283	Family & juvenile
29	In re T.S. In the Interest of T.S. and K.G., Minor Children, L.G., Mother, K.G., Father of K.G.	2015	Iowa Court of Appeals	282	Family & juvenile
30	In re S.R. In the Interest of S.R.	1999	Iowa Court of Appeals	279	Family & juvenile
31	In re C.K. In the Interest of C.K.	1997	Iowa Supreme Court	272	Family & juvenile
32	In re A.C. In the Interests of A.C.	1987	Iowa Supreme Court	269	Family & juvenile
33	In re C.H. In the Interest of C.H.	2002	Iowa Supreme Court	267	Family & juvenile
34	In re A.A.G. In the Interest of A.A.G.	2005	Iowa Court of Appeals	263	Family & juvenile
35	DeVoss v. State	2002	Iowa Supreme Court	261	Criminal & postconviction
36	In re L.L. In the Interest of L.L.	1990	Iowa Supreme Court	260	Family & juvenile
37	State v. Shanahan	2006	Iowa Supreme Court	251	Criminal & postconviction
38	State v. Lyle	2014	Iowa Supreme Court	247	Criminal & postconviction
39	State v. Carroll	2009	Iowa Supreme Court	246	Criminal & postconviction
40	State v. Pals State of Iowa v. Randall Lee Pals	2011	Iowa Supreme Court	246	Criminal & postconviction
41	State v. Finney State of Iowa v. Craig Anthony Finney	2013	Iowa Supreme Court	240	Criminal & postconviction
42	State v. Plain State of Iowa v. Kelvin Plain Sr.	2017	Iowa Supreme Court	239	Criminal & postconviction
43	State v. Turner	2001	Iowa Supreme Court	238	Criminal & postconviction
44	In re Marriage of Fennelly In Re Marriage of Fennelly & Breckenfelder	2007	Iowa Supreme Court	238	Family & juvenile
45	State v. Hill State of Iowa v. Donald James Hill	2016	Iowa Supreme Court	237	Criminal & postconviction
46	In re Marriage of Vrban In Re the Marriage of Vrban	1984	Iowa Supreme Court	237	Family & juvenile
47	State v. Ellis	1998	Iowa Supreme Court	229	Criminal & postconviction
48	State v. Fountain	2010	Iowa Supreme Court	226	Criminal & postconviction
49	State v. Johnson	2010	Iowa Supreme Court	224	Criminal & postconviction
50	In re D.S. In the Interest of D.S.	2011	Iowa Court of Appeals	223	Family & juvenile

Methodology

How this was measured

Every citation is an edge in the corpus citation graph: 475,375 of them, drawn from the text of 76,725 Iowa appellate decisions, published and unpublished. Edges point at opinion nodes, so each opinion in a multi-opinion decision counts separately.
A case's count is the number of distinct citing opinions. An opinion that cites the same case five times counts once, so a large number means broad use, not one enthusiastic writer.
Practice areas are assigned per case, one label each, from the subject of the cited decision.
The chart's layout is computed once at export and frozen with the data. The page draws it; nothing on it is recomputed.

Read the fine print

Citations counted here are those made by Iowa appellate opinions inside the corpus. Citations by federal courts, other states, briefs, and secondary sources are not counted, so these are floors, not totals.
The corpus is complete on the citing side from 2014 forward and thinner for 2010–2013, so cases whose use peaked before 2014 are undercounted relative to newer ones, and raw counts should not be read as a trend.
Multiple Iowa decisions share captions, so cases were matched on citation and year, never on name.
Frequently cited is not the same as good law. A case on this list may have been limited, superseded by statute, or overruled since it was decided; check its treatment before you cite it.