Case Citator › Houston v. Lack

Houston v. Lack

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

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
487 U.S. 266
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
117 of 117
Citing cases (total)
6,562
Treatment dates
2024
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Houston v. Lack is limited among the reviewed cases: all 117 flagged citations have been read, with the 1 confirmed treatment listed below. Brunson Roberts v. Dexter Payne expressly declined to extend Houston's prison-mailbox rule to objections to a recommended disposition.
More on how this was screened

The other reviewed opinions applied or extended Houston, reported that Houston displaced older precedents, quoted a Houston dissent about the distinct unique-circumstances doctrine, or placed unrelated adverse-history language near the citation. One opinion reported the Board of Immigration Appeals' refusal to adopt Houston's policy for its own filing regime but did not reach that question. Three repeated citation matches were read and counted separately.

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.

6,562 later cases cite Houston v. Lack; 117 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 Houston v. Lack?

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

Limited

  • The district court declined to extend Houston's prison-mailbox rule to objections to a recommended disposition and therefore treated objections received after the deadline as untimely.

    Brunson Roberts v. Dexter Payne · E.D. Arkansas · filed

    However, the Eighth Circuit has not applied the prison mailbox tule to objections to recommended dispositions. Therefore, Mr. Roberts’s objections remain untimely because they did not arrive at the Clerk of Court’s office until after the filing deadline had elapsed (Dkt. No. 178).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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