Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
347 federal appellate · 204 district · 578 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,640 later decisions (67 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota (1992), Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. (1990)
347 federal appellate · 204 district · 578 state decisions — followed in 39 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
reviewedFalwell v. Flynt (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. · Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts
Cited together with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. · Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps · Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, 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 1,640 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“which would allow a jury to impose liability on the basis of the jurors' tastes or views, or perhaps on the basis of their dislike of a particular expression.”
66 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.'”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“could not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts”
9 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.