Matson v. Margiotti’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 157 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 199 later decisions — most recently February 2019 · most notably Corabi v. Curtis Publishing Co. (1971), Montgomery v. Philadelphia (1958)
11 federal appellate · 157 state decisions — followed in 17 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.
Relationships
Relies on Dennis v. United States · Spalding v. Vilas · Gregoire v. Biddle · Cooper v. O'Connor · Yaselli v. Goff
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 199 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“is unlimited and exempts a high public official from all civil suits for damages arising out of false defamatory statements and even from statements or actions motivated by malice, provided the statements are made or the actions are taken in the course of the official's duties or powers and within the scope of his authority, or as it is sometimes expressed, within his jurisdiction.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Feldman v. Hoffman · Wolfe v. Glenn“it is in the public interest to permit an Attorney General to keep the public advised of his official acts and conduct where such actions are in the course of and within the scope of his official duties or powers.”
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.