Roth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Admitting that on proof of these facts the plaintiff would Inn e been entitled to a verdict for some amount, he certainly would not have been entitled to nearly as large a sum in the way of damages, if the affidavit was true, as he should have received if it had not been true. If the affidavit was not true, and if the arrest was by procurement of defendant, the jury should presume malice, and award heavy vindictive damages. If the affidavit in fact was true, and the jury could see that the defendant, in making it, even though he voluntarily furnished it to the marshal and advised the arrest of the plaintiff, was acting without malice and in the belief that the public good required the arrest of the plaintiff, and that he could be legally arrested, and that, in causing his arrest, so far as the defendant could be said to cause it, he believed himself to be in the performance of his duty as a citizen, it would clearly, in such a case, be the duty of the jury to give only compensatory and not vindictive damages.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Beckwith v. Bean