Firestone v. Time, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
460 F.2d 712 · 1972
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2024 · most notably Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974), Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton (1989)
14 federal appellate · 6 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 Conley v. Gibson · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Napue v. People of the State of Illinois · 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Supreme Court has not expressly added the-requirement of clear and convincing-proof of falsity to the plaintiffs burden of proof. As stated, the burden of showing falsity has been imposed upon the plaintiff in First Amendment cases. Garrison [v. Louisiana ] supra [ 379 U.S. 64 , 85 S.Ct. 209 , 13 L.Ed.2d 125 (1964)]; Rosenblatt [v. Baer ] supra [ 383 U.S. 75 , 86 S.Ct. 669 , 15 L.Ed.2d 597 (1966) ]. Such a standard of proof seems implicit however, in the stated requirement in New York Times that plaintiff has the burden of showing by clear and convincing proof that publication was with knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard as to falsity vel non. I conclude for the same constitutional reasons giving rise to this stringent proof requirement that the clear and convincing proof standard would also apply to proving that the statement was false in the first instance.”
3 later decisions 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.