Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
327 U.S. 251 · 1946
Citation profile
1,642 federal appellate · 263 district · 217 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,303 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2024 · most notably Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody (1975), Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc. (1969)
1,642 federal appellate · 263 district · 217 state decisions — followed in 32 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
reviewedBigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co. · Eastman Kodak Co of New York v. Southern Photo Materials Co · The Pennsylvania · Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States
Cited together with Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co. · Eastman Kodak Co of New York v. Southern Photo Materials Co · Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc. · Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. United States · United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
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 3,303 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The most elementary conceptions of justice and public policy require that the wrongdoer shall bear the risk of the uncertainty which his own wrong has created.”
130 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“conclude as a matter of just and reasonable inference from the proof of defendants' wrongful acts and their tendency to injure plaintiffs' business, and from the evidence of the decline in prices, profits and values, not shown to be attributable to other causes, that defendants' wrongful acts had caused damage to the plaintiffs.”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The rule which precludes the recovery of uncertain damages applies to such as are not the certain result of the wrong, not to those damages which are definitely attributable to the wrong and only uncertain in respect of their amount.”
8 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.