Matassa v. Bel’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently February 1985
2 federal appellate · 14 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 · Madison v. Bolton · Kennedy v. Item Co. · 156 So. 2d 250 - Matassa v. Bel
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"In order to avail oneself of the rule of fair comment and criticism the publication must be one made `with an honest purpose, without malice, based on facts, * * * restricted to a man's acts or works' and, in addition, it `must not attack him in his private character nor convey imputations of an evil sort except so far as the facts, truly stated, warrant the imputation.' And for the publication to enjoy a qualified privilege, the statement must be prepared bona fide, with the view to preventing or punishing some public abuse, in which case it is considered as justified as a duty owed to society, providing it does not `meet the objection of having been made maliciously and without probable cause.' Madison v. Bolton, 234 La. 997 , 102 So.2d 433 , and the extensive authorities therein cited.' [2]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“with knowledge that it was false or with a reckless disregard as to whether it was false or not.”
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.