Long v. Arcell’s Empirical Analysis
618 F.2d 1145 · 1980
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 1 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently September 2009 · most notably Tavoulareas v. Piro (1987), Miller v. Transamerican Press, Inc. (1980)
20 federal appellate · 1 district · 11 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · St. Amant v. Thompson · Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts · Garrison v. State of Louisiana
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The plaintiffs' case rested almost entirely upon the testimony of Bradshaw [a Board of Health employee] and Wilson [the attorney for the ambulance service]. Theirs was the only testimony relating directly to the defendant's state of mind. There was no documentary evidence which showed that the defendants knew their article was false or entertained serious doubts about its accuracy.[ [4] ] In sum, the jury was left to decide the case based on the conflicting accounts of the conversations described above. If the applicable burden of proof had been a preponderance of the evidence, a jury verdict either way would have to stand. Similarly, if liability could be imposed on a clear and convincing showing of negligence, we would be hard pressed to disregard the jury's verdict. We repeat, however, that the plaintiff's burden was to prove actual malice by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants knew that their information was incorrect or had a `high degree of awareness of ... [its] probable falsity.' (citation omitted). "Although the Constitution neither condones nor encourages careless journalistic practices, the journalist who merely is careless may not be held liable for defaming a public figure. That is because the interests we must consider in libel cases are not only those of the defamed and the defamer. If they were, the former would prevail with a greater degree of frequency. In all libel suits between a public figure and a publisher the public intervenes as a matte”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“our duty is to make an independent examination of the evidence and determine whether there was a clear and convincing showing of actual malice”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In order for the plaintiffs to recover damages, therefore, they were required to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants acted with actual malice as defined in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 , 84 S.Ct. 710 , 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964) and its progeny. See Curtis Publishing Company v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130, 155 , 87 S.Ct. 1975, 1991 , 18 L.Ed.2d 1094, 1111 (1967). A publisher acts with actual malice when he prints a story with knowledge that it is false or with reckless disregard for the truth. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 342 , 94 S.Ct. 2997, 3008 , 41 L.Ed.2d 789, 806 (1974); St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U.S. 727, 731 , 88 S.Ct. 1323, 1325 , 20 L.Ed.2d 262, 267 (1968).””
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.