Virgil v. Time, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
527 F.2d 1122 · 1975
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 5 district · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 74 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2022 · most notably The Florida Star v. Bjf (1989), Goodrich v. Waterbury Republican-American, Inc. (1982)
18 federal appellate · 5 district · 28 state decisions — followed in 14 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.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1292
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Miller v. California · Branzburg v. Hayes · Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission
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 74 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he line is to be drawn when the publicity ceases to be the giving of information to which the public is entitled, and becomes a morbid and sensational prying into private lives for its own sake, with which a reasonable member of the public, with decent standards, would say that he had no concern.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“One who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if (a) the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he fact that [people] engage in an activity in which the public can be said to have a general interest does not render every aspect of their lives subject to public disclosure.”
2 later decisions 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.