Runnels v. Okamoto’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
16 district · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Towse v. State (1982), Butler v. Town of Argo (2003)
16 district · 29 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 Barr v. Matteo · Gaetano v. Sharon Herald Co. · Abraham v. S. E. Onorato Garages · Richards v. Midkiff · Medeiros v. Kondo
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“While everyone who participates in the publication of defamatory remarks may be properly charged with having published them, the mere acceptance of such remarks as true cannot constitute publication, regardless of how much weight that acceptance may lend to their apparent validity. The plaintiff must plead and prove, where the defendant himself has not published the defamatory matter, that the defendant through a third party directed or procured its publication.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“. . . but to limit liability ... by holding plaintiff to a higher standard of proof than in a normal tort case. To this end we allocate to plaintiff the burden of adducing clear and convincing proof that defendant was motivated by malice and not by an otherwise proper purpose.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The interest which is here protected is of that reputation, and for tort liability to lie for either slander or libel the defamation must be communicated to some third party other than the person defamed.”
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.