185 Ill. 2d 299 - Van Horne v. Muller’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 100 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 173 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably 221 Ill. 2d 558 - Solaia Technology, LLC v. Specialty Publishing Co. (2006), 238 Ill. 2d 352 - Vancura v. Katris (2010)
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 100 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · 174 Ill. 2d 77 - Bryson v. News America Publications, Inc. · 126 Ill. 2d 78 - McGrath v. Fahey · 154 Ill. 2d 1 - Kolegas v. Heftel Broadcasting Corp. · 92 Ill. 2d 344 - Chapski v. Copley Press
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 173 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“imputing an inability to perform or want of integrity in the discharge of duties of office or employment”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) that the employer knew or should have known that the employee had a particular unfitness for the position so as to create a danger of harm to third persons; (2) that such particular unfitness was known or should have been known at the time of the employee’s hiring or retention; and (3) that this particular unfitness proximately caused the plaintiffs injury.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury is the employer's negligence in hiring or retaining the employee, rather than the employee's wrongful act.”
2 later decisions 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.