Wheeler v. Green’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 8 district · 51 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently April 2014 · most notably Gazette, Inc. v. Harris (1985), Rogers v. Grimaldi (1989)
6 federal appellate · 8 district · 51 state decisions — followed in 13 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.
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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[n]o law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever....”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“the general damages for which the jury may award recovery include humiliation and mental suffering,”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Defamatory statements, of course, have throughout the history of this state been recognized as an abuse of the right of free expression for which a person is to be held responsible under the provisions of Article I, § 8. However, when we consider the ways in which a person may be held responsible in a civil action for defamatory speech or writing, we must also consider the provisions of Article I, § 10, which guarantees every person a remedy by `due course of law for injury done him in his * * * reputation.' Construing together these two provisions of Article I, both of which have a direct bearing on defamation cases, we hold that in a common-law civil action for damages, the defendant who has abused the right of free expression by defamatory statements may be held responsible only to the extent of permitting the injured party to recover for the resulting injury to reputation that is, to recover compensatory damages. "[Punitive damages are for punishment and deterrence] Neither punishment nor deterrence of others is necessary to compensate the plaintiff for injury to reputation."”
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.