Boomshaft v. Klauber’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 state decisions

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . In the cases of Traylor v. White, supra ( 185 Mo. App. 325 ), and Walker v. White, supra ( 192 Mo. App. 13 ), an examination of our files show that the petitions in the cases averred that the words spoken and published of and concerning the plaintiff by the defendant were spoken ‘in the presence and hearing of divers persons;’ and in each of them, as will be seen by reference to the decisions as reported, there was evidence that the actionable words had been spoken not only in the presence, bnt in the hearing of divers and sundry persons other than the plaintiffs. But in each case instructions given on behalf of plaintiffs and purporting to cover the ivhole case were held to be erroneous in that they authorized a verdict for plaintiffs on a mere finding that the defendants had uttered the words of and concerning plaintiffs, without also requiring the jury to find that the words were spoken in the presence of and heard and, understood by others, although the evidence there showed that the words were spoken in the hearing of others and that they understood them.” (Italics ours.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 234 Mo. App. 437 - Norris v. Brady

2. ““The requisites of an oral publication are: (1) that the language be spoken to or in the presence of at least some one third person. . . . No possible form of words can be the basis of an action for slander if at the time of their utterance the only persons present are the speaker and the person to whom or whose affairs the language concerns. (2) The third person present must hear the language spoken. Whether the third person present at the speaking did or did not hear the language spoken is, in every case, a question of fact. And this is not the less the rule because where the speaking is in the presence of a third person, under such circumstances that he might have heard what was spoken, he may, as a rule of evidence, be assumed to have heard it, until it be shown that he did not hear. The burden is on him who alleges a publication to establish that the third person heard the language spoken. (3) The third person must understand the language. ’ ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 234 Mo. App. 437 - Norris v. Brady