Riley v. City of Chester’s Empirical Analysis
612 F.2d 708 · 1979
Citation profile
43 federal appellate · 16 district · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 135 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably United States v. Cuthbertson (1980), Zerilli v. Smith (1981)
43 federal appellate · 16 district · 32 state decisions — followed in 16 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
Relies on United States v. Nixon · Branzburg v. Hayes · D'Oench, Duhme & Co. v. Federal Deposit Insurance · New York Times Company v. United States · Grosjean v. American Press Co.
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 135 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... [I]n civil actions and proceedings, with respect to an element of a claim or defense as to which state law supplies the rule of decision, the privilege of a witness, person, government, state, or political subdivision thereof, shall be determined in accordance with state law.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]his is simply a situation where a journalist has been called as a witness to a civil suit in which neither she nor her employer has any personal interest. The news stories were concededly written by her in the course of her newspaper employment on matters of public interest concerning a candidate for high public office in a hotly contested campaign. . .Under the circumstances, plaintiff must demonstrate why his interest in civil litigation, although brought to vindicate his significant constitutional right to participate freely and without undue hindrance in a public election, is dependent upon the information sought. In striking the delicate balance between the assertion of the privilege on the one hand and the interest of either criminal or civil litigants seeking the information the materiality, relevance and necessity of the information sought must be shown. All courts which have considered this issue have agreed that the federal common law privilege of news writers shall not be breached without a strong showing by those seeking to elicit the information that there is no other source for the information requested.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“First, the movant [seeking to override the privilege] must demonstrate that he has made an effort to obtain the information from other sources. Second, he must demonstrate that the only access to the information sought is through the journalist and her source. Finally, the movant must persuade the court that the information sought is crucial to the claim.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.