Alexander v. Haley’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently December 2012 · most notably Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc. (1992), Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp. (1982)
18 federal appellate · 3 district ·
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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 636
Relies on Royal Netherlands Steamship Co. v. Strachan Shipping Co. · Arnstein v. Porter · Lovell Manufacturing Co. v. Etten · Rosemont Enterprises Inc. v. Random House, Inc. · Rebecca Reyher and Ruth Gannett v. Children's Television Workshop and Tuesday Publications, 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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“incidents, characters or settings which are as a practical matter indispensable, or at least standard, in the treatment of a given topic.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Yet another group of alleged infringements is best described as cliched language, metaphors and the very words of which the language is constructed. Words and metaphors are not subject to copyright protection; nor are phrases and expressions conveying an idea that can only be, or is typically, expressed in a limited number of stereotyped fashions.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“attempted escapes, flights through the woods pursued by baying dogs, the sorrowful or happy singing of slaves .... scenes portraying sex between male slave owners and female slaves and the resentment of female slave owners . . . slave owners complaining about the high price of slaves ....”
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.