McLaughlin v. Cowley’s Empirical Analysis
1879
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1989 · most notably Briscoe v. W (1983), McGranahan v. Dahar (1979)
2 federal appellate · 36 state decisions — followed in 21 states
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 Rice v. Coolidge · Gray v. Thrasher · McAllister v. Burrill · Rich v. Ryder
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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It was stated in the opinion of this court in the recent case of Rice v. Coolidge, 121 Mass. 393 , that it seems to be settled by the English authorities that judges, counsel, parties and witnesses are absolutely exempted from liability to an action for defamatory words published in the course of judicial proceedings; and that the same doctrine is generally held in the American courts, with the qualification as to parties, counsel and witnesses, that their statements made in the course of an action must be pertinent and material to the case.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Mundy v. McDonald
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.