Perkins v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 11 state decisions

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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In the case of judicial proceedings ... words spoken or written by a party, by counsel, by a judge, a juror or a witness, although false, defamatory and malicious, are not actionable if they were uttered in the due course of the proceeding, in the discharge of a duty, or the prosecution or defense of a right, and were pertinent and material to the matter in hand. It is unquestionable that a person who institutes a groundless proceeding, whether civil or criminal, against another, upon false or defamatory charges, is liable to an action for the injury he occasions. But that the action must be for the malicious complaint, indictment or action, and not for the words.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. White v. Frank

2. “The phrase employed by the judges and the text writers, in speaking of this sort of privileged communications, is 'judicial proceedings.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Boice v. Unisys Corp.