Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
808 federal appellate · 296 district · 1,710 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,721 later decisions (94 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. (1986), Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois (1968)
808 federal appellate · 296 district · 1,710 state decisions — followed in 48 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
reviewedCurtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 77K (§ 11 of the Securities Act of 1933) · 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (White-Collar Crime Penalty Enhancement Act of 2002)
Relies on Johnson v. Zerbst · Gideon v. Wainwright · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Griffin v. California · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button
Cited together with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · St. Amant v. Thompson · Garrison v. State of Louisiana · Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, 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 3,721 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
85 later decisions quote this exact passage“. . a showing of highly unreasonable conduct constituting an extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers.”
25 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“involved in issues in which the public has a justified and important interest”
21 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.