Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
1,558 federal appellate · 199 district · 1,277 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,078 later decisions (110 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. (1986), Hernandez v. New York (1991)
1,558 federal appellate · 199 district · 1,277 state decisions — followed in 44 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
reviewedthe decision below (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1121 (§ 39 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act)) · 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (Class Action Fairness Act of 2005)
Relies on Glasser v. United States · United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers
Cited together with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · St. Amant v. Thompson · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Anderson v. City of Bessemer City
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 4,078 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“an appellate court has an obligation to `make an independent examination of the whole record' in order to make sure that `the judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression.'”
224 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“make an independent examination of the whole record”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage““The burden of proving ‘actual malice’ requires the plaintiff to demonstrate with clear and convincing evidence that the defendant realized that his statement was false or that he subjectively entertained serious doubt as to the truth of his statement.””
25 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.