501 F. Supp. 1107 - Bussie v. Larson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 state decisions

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 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Our understanding of New York Times and its offspring is that private persons and the press are equally protected by the requirement that false comment about public figures must be knowing or in reckless disregard of the truth in order to be actionable. It seems to us a necessary corollary that comment about public figures should be equally protected whether made in mass media or in private. This is required both by the First Amendment, which speaks equally of freedom of speech and of the press, and by common sense, for if the "press" were given more protection than "private speech," persons would be encouraged to rush allegations into wide publication rather than to carefully present them to informed parties for verification or refutation in a more private setting."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 453 So. 2d 1272 - Wattigny v. Lambert

2. “"Nor does the narrow audience in which the alleged defamatory statement was published persuade us that the New York Times privilege should not be extended to a person in White's position. Indeed with a narrow audience, the possibility of injury from an untruthful statement may be significantly less. More fundamentally, however, we believe that non-extension of the New York Times privilege to provide individuals like White creates a dangerous disequilibrium between the first amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and the press."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 453 So. 2d 1272 - Wattigny v. Lambert