L. A. Westermann Co. v. Dispatch Printing Co.’s Empirical Analysis
249 U.S. 100 · 1919
Citation profile
143 federal appellate · 64 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 335 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2018 · most notably New York Times Company v. United States (1971), F. W. Woolworth Co. v. Contemporary Arts, Inc. (1952)
143 federal appellate · 64 district ·
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
reviewedL. A. Westermann Co. v. Dispatch Printing Co. (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Coupe v. Royer · Rude v. Westcott · Brady v. Daly · Birdsall v. Coolidge
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 335 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Within these limitations the court's discretion and sense of justice are controlling, but it has no discretion when proceeding under this provision to go outside of them.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If any person shall infringe the copyright in any work protected under the copyright laws of the United States such person shall be liable: ****** “(b) To pay to the copyright proprietor such damages as the copyright proprietor may have suffered due to the infringement, as well as all the profits which the infringer shall have made from such infringement, and in proving profits the plaintiff shall be required to prove sales only and the defendant shall be required to prove every element of cost which he claims, or in lieu of actual damages and profits such damages as to the court shall appear to be just, and in assessing such damages the court may, in its discretion, allow the amounts as hereinafter stated, but in case of a newspaper reproduction of a copyrighted photograph ■such damages shall not exceed the sum ■of $200 nor be less than the sum of $50, nnd in the case of the infringement of an undramatized or nondramatic work by ■means of motion pictures, where the infringer shall show that he was not aware that he was infringing, and that such infringement could not have been reasonably foreseen, such damages shall not exceed the sum of $100; and in the case of an infringement of a copyrighted dramatic or dramatieo-musical work by a maker of motion pictures and his agencies for distribution thereof to exhibitors, where such infringer shows that he was not aware that he was infringing a copyrighted work, and that such infringements could not reasonably have been foreseen, t”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is evident that in many cases it would be quite difficult to prove the exact amount of damages .... . . . In the face of the difficulty of determining the amount of such damages in all cases, the statute provides a minimum sum for a recovery in any case, leaving it open for a larger recovery upon proof of greater damage in those cases where such proof can be made.” Westermann Co. v. Dispatch Co., 249 U.S. 100, 108 , 39 S.Ct. 194, 196 , 63 L.Ed. 499 (1919) quoting Brady v. Daly, 175 U.S. 148, 154 , 20 S.Ct. 62 , 44 L.Ed. 109 (1899).”
2 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.