Willitzer v. McCloud’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 91 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 108 later decisions — most recently November 2025 · most notably Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls (2005), Morrow v. Reminger & Reminger Co. (2009)
3 federal appellate · 91 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 Imbler v. Pachtman · State ex rel. Teece v. Industrial Commission · Primes v. Tyler · State ex rel. Jennings v. Industrial Commission · Di Giovanni v. Pessel
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 108 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“In Ohio, it has long been recognized that freedom of speech is essential in a judicial proceeding to ensure justice. To preserve this freedom and thereby assure that all participants in a judicial proceeding feel free to testify, question, and act, courts have prohibited civil actions based on certain statements made at trial. For instance, judges, counsel, parties, and witnesses are absolutely immune from civil suits for remarks made during the course of and relevant to a judicial proceeding.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is a well-established rule that judges, counsel, parties, and witnesses are absolutely immune from civil suits for defamatory remarks made during and relevant to judicial proceedings. See Erie County Farmers' Ins. Co. v. Crecelius (1930), 122 Ohio St. 210 , 171 N.E. 97 ; McChesney v. Firedoor Corp. (1976), 50 Ohio App.2d 49 , 51 , 361 N.E.2d 552 [ 4 O.O.3d 28 ] . This immunity is based on the policy of protecting the integrity of the judicial process. The function of a judicial proceeding is to ascertain the truth. To achieve this noble goal, participants in judicial proceedings should be afforded every opportunity to make a full disclosure of all pertinent information within their knowledge. For a witness, this means he must be permitted to testify without fear of consequences. Freedom of speech in a judicial proceeding is essential to the ends of justice. 1 Harper James, Law of Torts (1956) 423-426, Section 5.22.”
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.