Belliveau v. Rerick’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
1 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently July 2012
1 district · 10 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · United States v. Bailey · Orr v. Argus-Press Co. · Ponticelli v. Mine Safety Appliance Co.
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Although at common law an expression of opinion might have been actionable as defamatory in the event that such an expression was sufficiently derogatory of another to cause harm to his reputation, 3 Restatement (Second) Torts § 566 at 170-71 (1976), that rule now appears to have been rendered unconstitutional by the pronouncements of the Supreme Court of the United States in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 , 94 S.Ct. 2997 , 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974). In that case the Court observed: ‘Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.’ Id. at 339-40 , 94 S.Ct. at 3007 , 41 L.Ed.2d at 805 .” Belliveau, 504 A.2d at 1362 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““ ‘It is the function of the court to determine whether an expression of opinion is capable of bearing a defamatory meaning because it may reasonably be understood to imply the assertion of undisclosed facts that justify the expressed opinion about the plaintiff or his conduct * * ” Id. at 484 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““A defamatory communication may consist of a statement in the form of an opinion, but a statement of this nature is actionable only if it implies the allegation of undisclosed defamatory facts as the basis for the opinion.” 3 Restatement (Second) Torts § 566 at 170.”
1 later decision 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.