Brown v. Collins’s Empirical Analysis
402 F.2d 209 · 1968
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 12 district · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 76 later decisions — most recently July 2017 · most notably Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Costle (1981), United States v. Blackwell (1982)
31 federal appellate · 12 district · 22 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 46 Cal. 2d 375 - Albertson v. Raboff · 48 Cal. 2d 365 - State of California v. Industrial Acc. Com. · Jesse B. Manbeck v. Gerald S. Ostrowski · Zirn v. Cullom
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 76 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The doctrine of absolute immunity for statements in judicial proceedings reflects a judgment that the need for completely free speech for litigants is dominant, and that this freedom is not to be endangered by subjecting parties to the burden of defending their motives in subsequent slander litigation, or to the risk that juries may misapprehend those motives. Such special immunity is not lightly conferred, however, as it protects deliberate lies told with intent to destroy reputation. Where dealing with preliminary statements other than witness briefings, settlement discussions and the like, there is need for particularly close attention to the factual circumstances, recognizing that unlike statements made in court, these communications are not cabined by a litigant's recognition that contempt of a court may follow if they are outrageously unnecessary and intemperate, even though more or less relevant. ". . . Business conversations are not absolutely privileged merely because they deal with matters likely to end up in court in the future. . . . Although the Restatement standard of 'relation' to the proceedings is broad, and does not require legal relevance, even that liberal standard is not met merely by showing that the defamatory comments were triggered by some pending lawsuit or the facts involved therein. . . . . [T]he mere mention of the possibility of suing the communicant [does not] automatically convert the entire conversation to one 'related' to a proposed judicial”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]here the record shows no reference to the legal claim, the facts must be unambiguous before an appellate determination cutting off or requiring retrial is proper”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“in the institution of, or during the course and as a part of, a judicial proceeding.”
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.