International News Service v. Associated Press’s Empirical Analysis
248 U.S. 215 · 1918
Citation profile
371 federal appellate · 148 district · 253 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,323 later decisions (77 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same (1925), Olmstead v. United States (1928)
371 federal appellate · 148 district · 253 state decisions — followed in 26 states
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.
Appellate journey
reviewedAssociated Press v. International News Service (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States · Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co. · William Truax v. Mike Raich · Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf · Nash v. United States
Cited together with Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co. · Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. · Erie Co v. Tompkins · Metropolitan Opera Ass'n, Inc. v. Wagner-Nichols Recorder Corp. · Goldstein v. California
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 1,323 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'appropriat[e] to itself the harvest of those who have sown.'”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"The unwritten law possesses capacity for growth; and has often satisfied new demands for justice by invoking analogies or by expanding a rule or principle." International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215, 262 , 39 S.Ct. 68, 80 , 63 L.Ed. 211 (1918).”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the news element — the information respecting current events contained in the literary production — is not the creation of the writer, but is a report of matters that ordinarily are publici juris; it is the history of the day.”
4 later decisions 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.