369 Ill. App. 3d 828 - Atkinson v. Affronti’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 3 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Lewis v. School District #70 (2008), 408 Ill. App. 3d 434 - Seip v. Rogers Raw Materials Fund, L.P. (2011)
3 federal appellate · 3 district · 23 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 176 Ill. 2d 179 - In Re Chicago Flood Litigation · 129 Ill. 2d 351 - Pyne v. Witmer · 278 Ill. App. 3d 628 - Lawson v. City of Chicago · Barber-Colman Co. v. A & K Midwest Insulation Co. · 100 Ill. App. 3d 314 - Libco Corp. v. Adams
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The late Dean Prosser once noted that '[t]he defense of privilege, or immunity, in cases of defamation does not differ essentially from the privileges, such as those of self-defense, protection of property, or legal authority, available as to assault and battery. It rests upon the same idea, that conduct which otherwise would be actionable is to escape liability because the defendant is acting in furtherance of some interest of social importance, which is entitled to protection even at the expense of uncompensated harm to the plaintiff's reputation.’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a]n attorney must be at liberty to candidly and zealously represent his client in communications to potential opposing parties in litigation or other proceedings without the specter of civil liability for his statements clouding his efforts.”
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.