Nelson v. Borchenius’s Empirical Analysis
1869
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently December 1960 · most notably Julian v. Kansas City Star Co. (1908), Colbert v. Journal Publishing Co. (1914)
35 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 Van Vechten v. Hopkins · Smart v. Blanchard · Gibson v. Williams · Smawley v. Stark · Smith v. Miles
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The declaration had already set forth the fact that the plaintiff was a merchant, and these averments sufficiently apply the slanderous words to his business. The words in this case, though not in themselves actionable, were, nevertheless, of such a character that, if spoken as averred, concerning the plaintiff in his trade as a merchant, they were actionable, without the averment of any other extrinsic circumstance to explain them than the fact that the plaintiff was such trader or merchant. The declaration meets these requirements. It avers the plaintiff was a trader, and that the words were spoken of him in his trade. This is sufficient in substance, and it is only objections going to the substance that can be heard upon this motion.””
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.