Watwood v. Stone's Mercantile Agency, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
194 F.2d 160 · 1952
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 5 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently October 1989 · most notably Afro-American Publishing Co. v. Jaffe (1966), Shore v. Retailers Commercial Agency, Inc. (1961)
15 federal appellate · 5 district · 9 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 Bradstreet Co. v. Gill · Mitchell v. Bradstreet Co. · Sunderlin v. . Bradstreet · Hooper-Holmes Bureau, Inc. v. Bunn
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But the usual rule, which we think should prevail in the District of Columbia, is that a mercantile agency’s credit report to an interested subscriber is qualifiedly privileged; unless it is made in bad faith or for an improper purpose, the fact that it contains erroneous unfavorable statements about the plaintiff does not make the agency liable.” Watwood v. Stone’s Mercantile Agency, 90 U.S.App.D.C. 156 , 194 F.2d 160, 161 (1952).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Roscoe v. Schoolitz
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.