Knapp v. Post Printing & Publishing Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1943
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 14 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 60 later decisions — most recently July 2019 · most notably Churchey v. Adolph Coors Co. (1988), Burns v. McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Co., Inc. (1983)
8 federal appellate · 14 district · 36 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
Relies on Coleman v. MacLennan · Sillars v. Collier · Morley v. Post Printing & Publishing Co. · Walsh v. Pulitzer Publishing Co. · Republican Pub. Co. v. Mosman
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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A definition of libel which has received general acceptance and approbation is to be found in 33 American Jurisprudence, page 38, section 3. It reads: ‘A libel is a malicious publication, expressed either in printing or writing, or by signs and pictures, tending either to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or the reputation of one who is alive, and expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule.’ See, also, 36 C.J. p. 1143, •§ 3. Criminal libel in Colorado is defined in section 199, chapter 48, ’35 C.S.A., in almost identical words, as follows: ‘A libel is a malicious defamation expressed either by printing, or by signs, or pictures or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation, or publish the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him or her to public hatred, contempt or ridicule.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“invites consideration of his qualifications, and tenders, as an issue to be tried out publicly before the people, his honesty, integrity, and fitness for the office to be filled.... It is one of the hazards which a candidate for public favor must face that he is exposed to critical, and perhaps unjust, comments, but these, unless they transcend the bounds of what the law permits, must be borne for the sake of maintaining a free press.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Fry v. Lee“Or they [the defamatory words] may not be defamatory on their face, in which case the action cannot be maintained, unless the plaintiff can and does show that they were, under the particular circumstances, fairly capable of a special meaning rendering them defamatory, and that they were so understood.”
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.