Clark v. Pearson’s Empirical Analysis
1965
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 1994
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 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 · Barr v. Matteo · Cohens v. Virginia · Cohens v. Virginia · Howard v. Lyons
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It should be emphasized that this ruling [as to government officials] is limited to high-ranking Government officials. It does not comprehend the entire Government personnel. The host of Federal, State, municipal and local government administrators, scientists, lawyers, physicians, secretaries, clerks, inspectors of various kinds, policemen, firemen, letter carriers, mechanics, laborers, and others, are not affected and are not deprived of their rights under the law of libel. By entering Government employment, a person does not lose any of his civil rights. The exception is limited to high-ranking Government officers in order to secure the constitutional freedom for every citizen to discuss and criticize his Government.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““If an accused publication is unambiguous, its construction is a question of law for the Court. If, however, it is capable of two or more meanings, then the issue must be determined by the jury. It becomes the function of the jury to decide what the publication would mean to the ordinary man in the street, i.e., the average reader.””
1 later decision 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.