Rosenblatt v. Baer’s Empirical Analysis
1966
Citation profile
387 federal appellate · 156 district · 1,075 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,032 later decisions (88 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois (1968), Paul v. Davis (1976)
387 federal appellate · 156 district · 1,075 state decisions — followed in 47 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Jackson v. Denno · Roth v. United States · Screws v. United States · Thornhill v. Alabama
Cited together with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts · St. Amant v. Thompson · Garrison v. State of Louisiana
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 2,032 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“substantial responsibility for or control over the conduct of governmental affairs.”
149 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ` actual malice. '”
21 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The employee's position must be one which would invite public scrutiny and discussion of the person holding it, entirely apart from the scrutiny and discussion occasioned by the particular charges in controversy.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.