Webster v. Wilkins’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably Horsley v. Feldt (2002), Horsley v. Rivera (2002)
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 19 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 176 Ga. App. 745 - Bergen v. Martindale-Hubbell, Inc. · 170 Ga. App. 245 - Meyer v. Ledford · 190 Ga. App. 601 - Thomason v. Times-Journal, Inc. · 202 Ga. App. 587 - Eidson v. Berry · 205 Ga. App. 144 - Elder v. Cardoso
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Rosser's] reasoning is unpersuasive because implicit in it is the assumption that [the defendants] used the word[s] ["stolen," "steal," "stole," "fraud," "corruption," and "conspiracy"] in [their] legal sense and thereby implied some objective facts which make [Rosser guilty of crimes] as determined under Georgia law. Having reviewed [the defendants'] statement[s] in ... context[, as described in Division 2 (a) ], we cannot make this assumption. It is apparent from the context ... that [the defendants] did not use the [words] in [their] legal sense or as a legal conclusion, but used [them] only to express [their] subjective opinion criticizing [Rosser's management of Grady EMC]. More importantly, the average reader would not have construed [the defendants'] statement[s] to be ... legal conclusions that [Rosser committed crimes].... [Rather,] the average reader ... would have taken the statement[s] for what [they were], [ ] subjective, hyperbolic opinion[s] that cannot be proved to be true or false and that concern[ ] a matter on which reasonable people might differ; i.e., [whether Rosser mismanaged Grady EMC to his benefit and to the detriment of the members].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the expression of opinion on matters with respect to which reasonable men might entertain differing opinions is not libelous.... An assertion that cannot be proved false cannot be held libelous. A writer cannot be sued for simply expressing his opinion of another person, however unreasonable the opinion or vi-tuperous the expressing of it might be.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[T]he average reader, construing the statements] in the context of the entire article, would have taken the statement [s] for what [they were], . . . subjective, hyperbolic opinion that cannot be proved to be true or false and that concerns a matter on which reasonable people might differ. . . , 22”
1 later decision 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.