Comer v. Knowles’s Empirical Analysis
1877
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently November 1994
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 18 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““False imprisonment is necessarily a wrongful interference with the personal liberty of an individual. The wrong may he committed by words alone, or by acts alone, or by both, and by merely operating on the will of the individual,* or by personal violence, or by both. It is not necessary that the individual be confined within a prison, or within walls; or that he be assaulted, or even touched. It is not necessary that there should be any injury done to the individual’s person, or to his character, or reputation. Nor is it necessary that the wrongful act be committed with malice, or ill will, or even with the slightest wrongful intention. Nor is it necessary that the act be under color of any legal or judicial proceeding. All that is necessary is, that the individual be restrained of his liberty without any sufficient legal cause therefor, and by words or acts which he fears to disregard.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.