Case Citator › Bell v. Hood

Bell v. Hood

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Criticized by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
327 U.S. 678
Decided
Confirmed treatments
3
Flagged citations read
169 of 169
Citing cases (total)
169
Treatment dates
1975–1995
Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. All 169 flagged citations to Bell v. Hood have been read. The three confirmed adverse treatments are listed below: one court criticized its exception for frivolous claims, and two courts declined to carry its jurisdictional or remedial reasoning into other settings.
More on how this was screened

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. distinguished the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's text from the statute Bell construed; it did not confine Bell's holding.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

169 later cases cite Bell v. Hood; 169 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Bell v. Hood?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Criticized

  • The Federal Circuit criticized Bell's exception for jurisdictional dismissal of frivolous claims as lacking a basis in the procedural rules.

    Lewis v. United States · Federal Circuit · filed

    In this century, however, the Court’s references to that exception to the general rule have often been unenthusiastic, and it may be that the exception is best viewed as a vestige of nineteenth-century practice that has no continuing vitality in the age of modern pleading. ... Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. at 683, 66 S.Ct. at 776 (“The accuracy of calling these dismissals jurisdictional has been questioned.”); ... The “frivolousness” exception has no apparent grounding in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or the parallel Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Limited

  • The court declined to extend Bell's jurisdictional reasoning to the claims pleaded before it.

    Jones v. United States · E.D. Ark. · filed

    The Bivens case was a decison in line with the Supreme Court’s prior determination in Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1945). I am not persuaded that the jurisdictional doctrines of these cases extends to the matters pleaded before this court.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The court held that Bell's implied-remedy principle yields to contrary congressional intent when a statute is silent about remedies.

    Rivera Flores v. Puerto Rico Telephone Co. · D.P.R. · filed

    Where, as here, a statute is facially silent, resort to the application of Bell v. Hood and the imposition of an implied remedy should not be automatic. Rather, the Bell v. Hood principle must yield to contrary legislative intent.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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