Kent v. Iowa’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 1 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The defamatory words ... must be of such a nature that the court can presume as matter of law that they will tend to disgrace and degrade the party or hold him up to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule or cause him to be shunned and avoided. The imputation must be one tending to affect a party in a society whose standard of opinion the court can recognize. In many cases, moreover, words charging plaintiff with the commission of acts permissible in law, although they may lack public approval, have been held not to expose plaintiff to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or disgrace in the sense or to the degree required by the law of [defamation], as, for instance, charging one with setting up the statute of limitations, or the illegality of a contract, as a defense. To accuse one of being deficient in some quality which the law does not require him as a good citizen to possess is not [defamatory] per se. Mere general abuse and scurrility, however ill natured and vexatious, is no more actionable when written than when spoken, if it does not convey a degrading charge or imputation.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mills v. Iowa