Dean v. Dearing’s Empirical Analysis
2002
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently November 2021
2 federal appellate · 11 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 · Rosenblatt v. Baer · Gazette, Inc. v. Harris · Ewell v. Boutwell
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he use of the “small group theory” alone as the basis for satisfying the “of and concerning” element of a common law defamation action against a governmental actor does not survive constitutional scrutiny.... A member of a governmental group against which an allegedly defamatory statement is made can sustain a common law action for defamation only if that member can show the statement specifically implicated that member or each member of the group. Such implication can be shown by extrinsic evidence, but evidence that others “understood” the im plication based solely upon a plaintiffs membership in the referenced group mil not satisfy the “of and concerning” requirement.”
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.